We received a few questions for The Forum but we always need new ones. Do you have any quirky or interesting family stories for news News from the trenches or any new information for the Were you aware...........sections? Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be the country, Ireland. A new addition - a picture - is being tried for this week's Bulletin. Hopefully this will not create too many problems for our readers. If you don't get the picture and would like it, please email us and we will send it on. Even the most sophisticated emailed newsletters have their idiosyncratic problems - I received no text at all for this month's National Archives UK newsletter.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - FHC is closed for Thanksgiving and "Who Do You Think You Are?" The Forum New questions and a picture
In Were you aware... A few additional websites for Scotland and the National Archives puts Non-Conformist Birth, Marriage and Death records on-line.

Announcements

The Toronto Family History Centre will be this Saturday and Monday for the Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend.

"Who Do You Think You Are?" This new CBC television programs airs the first program of 13 parts on Thursday October 11 at 7:30p.m. "Where does Don Cherry get his combativeness? Did Margot Kidder inherit her passion for social justice? Is Margaret Trudeau the descendant of a Hindu Princess? Randy Bachman visits the German port where his ancestors fled poverty for the new world, while musician Steven Page unearths details of Nazi massacres of Jews in Poland. Watch as 13 celebrities embark on fascinating journeys to discover their family roots." The British series of the same name has been immensely popular, even spawning a magazine of the same name. We hope that the CBC can create the same buzz for Canadian Family History.

Favourite UK County Sites Next week's favourite county will be actually be a country: Ireland. Irish researchers are well aware of the problems of researching Ireland. A fire in the early 1920's destroyed about two thirds of the parish registers; only fragments of the 19th century censuses remain; and full civil registration did not start in Ireland until 1864. Still there are a lot of web-based resources available. Please send us your favourites for next week's Bulletin. This week's favourite county was Sussex. The silence was deafening - we received no suggestions for websites at all. At the Family History Centre we have 116 films containing mainly Sussex parish records, the National Burial Index CD which contains 315,000 entries for Sussex and the British Isles Vital Records Index which has about 340,000 christenings and 70,000 marriages. As usual the GENUKI website for Sussex is worth perusing closely.
The ForumQuestions: Q1/40/2007. UK.Edward Lawson was 9 months old on 2nd July 1837 when he died of 'Hoopingcough' at the farm called Beckside in Hellifield, near Settle in the county of York. William Lawson, the Brother, Farmer's Son, was the informant. If this is the person I think it is, he would have just been ten years of age. Did an informant on a death certificate have to be 'of age' ? This was also a very early certificate - so maybe restrictions weren't quite so tight?
Q2/40/2007. Wisconsin, USA.Our researcher is wondering why the groom in this wedding photo of about 1900 in Wisconsin is wearing an apron for this formal picture. Also does the gentleman in the front have his hat balanced on a gun or a stick? The rest of the photograph shows a neat two storey farmhouse in the middle of cleared fields with many tree stumps still visible and lots of women and children off to the right. The groom has two glasses and an empty jug (of beer?) in his hands and a stogie hanging out of his mouth. It is a great photo but why the apron?

Q3/40/2007. USA.I can't find my grandfather on the Ellis Island database. The census says he came in 1877. How do I find him?

Films received in the 7 days ending 4 October 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 1 November 2007.


Film Content	Film No
CAN NL St Joseph's RC PR 1874-1899	2169291
DEU Bresin CRs 1874 - 1883	1417608
DEU OLD Church Souces for Research	1045463
DEU Schwetz Kirchenbuch 1856 - 1918	0245588
ENG BDF Dunstable PR 1558-1749	1545404
ENG BDF Dunstable PR 1749-1812	0826468
ENG DEV South Molton PR 1601-1795	0917529
ENG WWI burnt records Powell, M.-	2263527
IRE WIC Delgany 1901 Census	1592785
ITL Petilia Policastro births 1843-1862	1916391
ITL Petilia Policastro births 1871-80	2164071
ITL Petilia Policastro deaths 1809-1852	1916636
ITL Petilia Policastro deaths 1853-1865	1916697
NLD Index to Dutch in French Army A-M	1963041
NLD Zeeland Hulst RC Pr 1715-96	0122382
POL Lodz Belcatow pr 1837-1844	0681033
USA IL Chicago St Cecelia's RC Pr 1885-	1752980

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

Any patron may renew a film ordered by another patron although the original patron's name will continue to appear on the label. The description of the film given above may not be a full description. A film number search in the Family History Library Catalog will reveal the full content of the film. The geographical abbreviations used above are based on the Chapman codes.

Were you aware.................. Scotland/CanadaA person with Scottish roots dropped in this week and made us aware of a few more useful Scottish websites:www.ayrshire-roots.com This website has a number of databases which have been indexed for easy searching - about 220,000 records. You must sign in with a password but the searching is free. Databases include Poor Relief and World Wars Casualty indexes but the one our informant found most useful was the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald database. This has the index to many of the Birth, Marriage, Anniversary, Death, Memoriam, Missing in Action, etc. notices from this newspaper. Our researcher found that even when the death was in Canada, notice may have been made in the hometown newspaper. www.monaghan95.freeserve.co.uk This website has access to photographs of many, many headstones and some Scottish towns. While the photographs are no longer on the actual website, email the website owner and he will apparently email you back the requested photograph. Non-Conformist Birth, Marriage and Death Index On-line The National Archives UK announced that they have put Non-confomist BMDs on-line. BMD Registers provides access to the non-parochial and nonconformist registers 1567-1840 held in RG 4 and RG5. As with all the other National Archives records, searching is free but you must pay to download each record.

Toronto Family History Centre Current Opening Hours.

Monday 9.30 a.m to 4 p.m. Tuesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. Thursday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. Friday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Should you decide that you no longer wish to receive this bulletin, reply to this email with the word "Delete" in the subject line.

Toronto Family History CentreChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
24 Ferrand Drive (Don Mills & Eglinton)
Phone: 416 422 5480 Ext. 111.

Email: Toronto_FHC@bellnet.ca

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 39/2007

Needed: questions for The Forum and information for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Sussex .

Email problems continue with a new twist last week. It appears that some of our readers' spam-checkers did not like one of the websites for Scotland we had included in our Bulletin last week. Please do let us know if you do not receive the Bulletin - this will help us determine the problem. If you would like last week's Bulletin 38/2007 and did not get it, let us know and we will be happy to send it to you. Remember to add our email address to your list of safe contacts.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - FHC is opening on Tuesday evenings again
The Forum An answer to "What does Of This Parish mean?"
News from the trenches ... Why did English couples marry in Scotland?
In Were you aware... Federation of Family History Societies has On-Line Databases

Announcements

The Toronto Family History Centre will be opening again for the winter on Tuesday evenings 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. This is in addition to our 9:30 am to 4:00 pm hours.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's favourite county will be Sussex.

This week's favourite counties were The Scottish Highland Counties.

Vida Preece writes: "Here are some links for Kintyre.

http://groups.msn.com/Kintyre/kintyregraveyards.msnw

http://www.kintyremag.co.uk (Back issues have quite a bit about genealogy.)

This website contains a pile of links for Scotland:

http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Society_and_Culture/Genealogy/Organisations/

This has a few links for Angus - http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/scotland/angus/index.html "

Sheila Smith sent in a number of interesting websites:

Shetland Family History Home Page at: http://bayanne.info/Shetland/ It contains thousands of records of people born, married or buried in the Shetlands. This should be everyone's first stop if they have a Shetland family.

Shetland Family History Society: http://www.shetland-fhs.org.uk/index.htm

Shetland Newspaper Transcriptions: http://www.jghalcrow.co.uk/
Transcriptions of birth, marriage and death announcements in various newspapers, from 1872-1963.

Orkney Genealogy: http://www.cursiter.com/indexNC.shtml
Also includes information on Caithness and the Shetland Isles. It includes a large index of births, baptisms and marriages.

Highland Family History Centre: http://www.highlandfhs.org.uk/Index.asp

The Scottish Emigration Database: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/emigration/index.html
A searchable database put together by the University of Aberdeen, containing the names of over 21,000 passengers. Can be searched by name, town, port of arrival, ship's name etc.

Am Baile: Highland History and Culture: http://www.ambaile.co.uk/en/index.jsp
This site includes photos and audio collections of Highland life and heritage.

Dorothy Stewart adds:

"Here is a GREAT site I have found for MORAY/ELGIN (library index) - http://libindx.moray.gov.uk/mainmenu.asp

(I have found a lot on my husband’s family members on it.)"

Gwen Armstrong suggests:

Shetland Newspaper Transcriptions BMD 1873-1900 - http://www.jghalcrow.co.uk/bdm/bdm.html

Additionally, for the Lowlands (last week's counties) - Irregular Border and Scottish Runaway Marriages -

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/famrec/hlpsrch/sumrmar/runmar.html

The Forum

Questions: No new questions were received this week. Please send some in.

Q2/37/2007. UK. Meaning of the term “of this parish” in marriage records.

Although the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which set up the Poor Law Unions and the workhouse system stipulated that the parishes within the union were required to support only the poor who had a right of settlement in those parishes, it seems that it did not prevent people from living and working outside their parish of settlement. On the other hand, if they were guilty of vagrancy – begging or prostitution for example – they could be returned to their parish of settlement.

Marriage in a church requires that at least one of the parties has to be a resident of that parish and the banns of marriage have to be called in that parish on three consecutive Sundays (and in the other party’s parish if that situation applied) and that is the rule to this day. However, this rule was easily circumvented. To avoid the additional cost of calling the banns in two parishes a prospective bride or groom would establish “residency” at the address of a friend or relative during the period the banns were being called. Nowadays it is commonplace for a couple who wish to get married in a “pretty” church rather than in their own parish church, will establish residency at a Bed & Breakfast in the desired parish at a special “don’t actually come here” rate. The “pretty” parish church is happy with the additional income thus generated and could be counted on to not ask too many questions

Films received in the 7 days ending 27 September 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 25 October 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN PQ Grenville Baptist pr	2022285
CAN PQ Land records M-T Jul 1856-60	1723582
ENG BKS Wills Archdeaconry 1738-42	1042593
ENG BKS Wills Archdeaconry 1742-45	1042594
ENG BKS Wills Archdeaconry 1756-61	1042598
ENG BKS Wills Archdeaconry 1765-68	1042601
ENG BKS Tingewick PRs BMB 1560-1812	1042441
ENG CON St Ives PR 1651-1868	1595570
ENG ESS Great Clacton pr 1802-87	1702213
ENG ESS Little Clacton pr 1538-1963	1565719
ENG HAM Hambledon Bapt 1778 - 1812	1041206
ENG KEN Preston-Nxt-Faversham PR	2354700
ENG KEN Preston-Nxt-Faversham PR	2354699
ENG LAN Liverpool St Peter BMD 1823-1828	1068925
ENG OXF Banbury BTs BMBs 1606-1817	0095208
ENG OXF Fringford BTs BMB 1680-1856	0095248
ENG OXF Stratton Audley PRs 1696-1950	0887489
ENG Royal Artillery Desc. Books 1815-40	0867036
ENG Royal Artillery Desc. Books 1815-43	0866559
ENG Royal Artillery Desc. Books 1815-45	0866596
GRD Civil Reg 1910-1916	1523259
IND Bombay BMB vol 12 1835-1836	0523839
IND Reg of Madras Soldiers 1786-1839	1885890
IND Reg of Madras Soldiers 1840-1850	1885891
IRL Marriages Vol 7 1849	0101308
NLD Haarlem PR Index Ma 1578 - 1811	0540675
NLD Haarlem PR Index Mi 1578 - 1811	0540677
SVK Kemarok pr 1813-	1739452
SVK Kemarok pr 1813-	1739451
USA MI Muskegon Naturalizations 1898-	1787480

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Helen Billing noticed the call for useful websites for the Scottish Lowlands last week and wondered how many readers, interested in English genealogy, knew about Gretna Green marriages. "Early on in my research whenever I could not find a marriage record, my mother would say 'Oh, they must have been married in Gretna Green'. Interest piqued, I looked up Gretna Green marriages. Gretna Green was on the stagecoach route between London and Edinburgh, and was the first changing post across the English border into Scotland. When Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act came into effect in 1753, brides and grooms under the age of 21 in England and Wales had to have their parent's permission to marry; and for all, banns had to be read or a marriage licence obtained (Jews and Quakers were exceptions to this part of the law). However the Act did not apply in Scotland, where grooms could marry at 14 and girls at 12 without their parent's consent and banns did not have to be read. The reading of banns in England occasionally resulted in objections being raised and the marriage could not take place.

Scottish law allowed for 'irregular marriages', meaning that, so long as a declaration was made, in front of two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The result of these differences was that thousands of English couples were married in Gretna Green's blacksmiths' shops, inns and smallholdings by the owners, self-appointed 'ministers'. Later on, in law, a Gretna Green marriage came to mean a marriage transacted in a jurisdiction that was not the residence of the parties being married, in order to avoid restrictions or procedures imposed by the parties' home jurisdiction. A few (about 4500) of these marriages have been indexed at http://www.achievements.co.uk/services/gretna/index.php .

Currently in England and Wales couples can be married at 16 years of age with parents' consent and 18 without. Couples can marry at 16 with or without parents' consent in Scotland.

Gretna Green has taken advantage of its history and still has a thriving wedding industry. Marriages can be held in the Old Blacksmith's Shop, Anvil Hall, The Mill Hotel and Forge, etc. I have seen estimates that 13 to 15% of all marriages in Scotland currently take place in Gretna Green."

Were you aware..................

The Federation of Family History Societies has searchable on-line databases which have been created by its member family history societies. You must create a user name and password to search the Index. Searching is free but to obtain further details of an entry you will need to establish credit, minimum £5. In each case charges are shown before debiting your account. You have 6 months in which to spend this and each further credit that you add. The charges are very reasonable. For example, one marriage record or baptism record costs a mere £0.06 to look at. Have a look at:

http://www.familyhistoryonline.net/

Toronto Family History Centre Current Opening Hours.

Monday 9.30 a.m to 4 p.m.

Tuesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Wednesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Thursday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Friday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Should you decide that you no longer wish to receive this bulletin, return this email with the word "Delete" in the subject line.

Toronto Family History Centre

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
24 Ferrand Drive (Don Mills & Eglinton)
Phone: 416 422 5480 Ext. 111.

Email: Toronto_FHC@bellnet.ca

TOP

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 38/2007

More questions are needed for The Forum, and information for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections would be welcomed. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be The Scottish Highland Counties.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - FHC early closing on Friday, September 21 and OGS Fall Courses & Scottish Family History Workshop

No new questions in The Forum but a couple of interesting answers

In Were you aware... Irish Census records coming on-line; CBC's fall schedule includes "Who Do You Think You Are"; a new decade of overseas passenger lists departing from Britain; and marriage entries missing from the UK Marriage Indexes

Announcements

The Toronto Family History Centre will be closing at 2pm tomorrow, Friday, September 21

OGS Scottish Family History Workshop and Fall Courses

In two recent Bulletins, the name of James Thomson has been misspelled, first with respect to the course in British Army Records which he is teaching this autumn (http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/courses.html), and then with respect to a session entitled A Survey of Scottish Family History Resources in the GTA which he is delivering as part of the Toronto Branch OGS workshop Exploring Scottish Ancestry on Saturday, November 10 (http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/scottish.html). James is a frequent contributor to the Bulletin.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

Two CDs have been added to our permanent collections:

ENG SRY Haslemere BMBs 1770-1812

ENG Lincolnshire Marriages for Huttoft, Mablethorpe St Mary & St Peter with Stain, Stain, Mumby, Mumby Chapel, Trusthorpe, Willoughby and Wilthern

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's favourite counties will be The Scottish Highland Counties. These include: Aberdeen, Forfar (Angus), Argyll, Banff, Bute, Caithness, Clackmannan, Dunbarton, Fife, Inverness, Kinross, Elgin (Moray), Nairn, Orkney, Perth, Ross & Cromarty, Stirling, Sutherland, and Shetland.

This week's favourite counties were The Scottish Lowland Counties.

Wendy Frew sent in these suggested websites:

1. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk (This is the government website. Gwen Armstrong notes that it can be expensive. 6 pounds for 30 credits. Each search will cost you a credit. If you want to view the record it is 5 credits. If there happens to be a change to the record or Reg. of Cor. Entry, it is another 2 credits. It is easy to search and you can find a lot quickly but 6 pounds goes fast.)

2. www.ayrshireroots.com

3. Coal Mining History Resource Centre - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cmhrc/

4. Scottish Mining Museum - http://scottishminingmuseum.com

5. Rampant Scotland - www.rampantscotland.co/genealogy.htm There are lots of suggestions here. If researching Ayrshire, go to Ayrshire in Scotlands Gen Web section. A useful email address would be Jill McColl at the Ardrosson Library's North Ayrshire Local History Department. She was very helpful when I visited the Library.

6. When visiting North Ayrshire, the North Ayrshire Cemeteries Service in Saltcoats is a goldmine. It is within walking distance of the Ardrossan Library.

Gwen Armstrong suggests:

Scotland Borders Family History Society - http://www.bordersfhs.org.uk/ I like the Other Websites page. Lots of links to family/surname sites.

Mitchell Library - http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/virtualmitchell/ - old photographs of Glasgow which are searchable

National Archives of Scotland - http://www.nas.gov.uk/familyHistory/

Scotlands Family - www.scotlandsfamily.com

Scottish Lowland Family History Researchers - http://www.geocities.com/elnalexjoe/lowlands.html

Scottish Association of Family History Societies - http://www.safhs.org.uk/ I like this because it has links to all the Scottish Family History Societies. I don't have to go searching.

Catholic Church links - http://home.att.net/~Local_Catholic/Catholic-Scotland.htm

Scotland Census on-line - http://www.freewebs.com/mmjeffery/index.htm

Talking Scot - http://www.talkingscot.com/

Scottish Mining Villages - http://www.mining-villages.co.uk/index.html

National Library of Scotland – digital maps - http://www.nls.uk/maps/townplans/index.html

The Forum

Questions: No new questions were received this week. Please send some in.

Answers

Q3/37/2007. UK .

A musical question - Can anyone recall the Parson's Nose song, because I want to start singing it to my nieces and nephews at carving time?

Paul Jones suggests that it might be this one:

"Here’s a link to a site with lyrics for a music hall number, “Christmas Day in the Cookhouse”, that may or may not be what your correspondent is seeking with regard to the parson’s nose. None of it is overtly off colour, but one suspects that there may be some euphemisms (e.g. “Fishcakes”) and perhaps some rhyming slang and other wordplay that escapes us today.

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/xmas/christmasdayinthecookhouse.shtml "

Q4/37/2007. UK/Newfoundland.

I am seeking advice regarding searching for my great great grandfather, Robert Woodman, who came from Devon and settled in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland in or about 1812. Could someone suggest a way over this brick wall?

Kathleen Lopez writes:

"I have spent considerable time researching Newfoundland settlers in the English records. Most of the English fisherman who eventually settled in Newfoundland came from within 20 miles of the southern coast of England. They were hired at Fairs and given enough money to walk to their place of embarkation early in the spring. This cuts down your search area for Robert Woodman considerably. If you consult Henry B. Guppy's book, " HOMES OF FAMILY NAMES IN GREAT BRITAIN", you will see that the name was most often found in Northumberland and Middlesex, thus it would not be a common name in the south of England. Spiegelhalter traced it in Devon. Having said all that, there are exceptions. My own ancestor, who settled very close to yours in Trinity Bay, was born in 1799 in North Yorkshire, but spent his youth in Bridport, Dorset. The men who worked the fishing boats in England and who sailed to Newfoundland were considered a source for the Navy --- "a nursery for the navy". There was even an early law which stated that every boat bound for Newfoundland had to have aboard a certain percentage of "green fishermen" - men who were new to fishing. This was because a land soldier could be trained in a short period of time, but men aboard a navy vessel took a long time to train. Therefore the Newfoundland homeward bound fishing vessels were often boarded before returning to port and men were pressed into the navy. The moral of the story is that Robert Woodman may well have never set eyes on the sea before boarding that vessel that took him to Newfoundland.

"I would not put a lot of stock in the story of the 3 brothers. Every person I have ever talked to searching in Newfoundland has a story about 3 brothers coming from England to Newfoundland. There seems to be something mystical about the number 3 in their family lore. But don't be pessimistic as I have had great success searching for ancestors born in England, suddenly appearing in church records in Newfoundland, but with no clue given about their birth place. The more uncommon a name the greater the chance of finding the individual in the English records.

"I had also great success in 1992 searching for the birth place of my Newfoundland NEWHOOK ancestor---with no idea of where he was born in England. No computer at that time!!! I went to the "GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH DIRECTORY" for 1989, 1990 1991 etc. and wrote to the several listed Newhook researchers and got a lead that way. I would suggest that this gentleman go to the library and search back copies of the Directory and see where people were listing their Woodmans. I have looked at my Directory copies for late 1980 and early 1990 listings for WOODMAN and see that people were searching in certain parishes in Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. I would start searching in those parishes for Robert Woodman." ( Editor's Note: The FHC has two " Genealogical Research Directories" in its library - the 2001 and the 2005 Editions. They can be found in the General Research section - three green dots on the top shelf of bookcase #1.)

Along a similar line, the researcher could always check out the RootsWeb mailing list for Devon, searching for Woodman and the Rootsweb Message Boards for Woodman & Devon.

Films received in the 7 days ending 20 September 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 18 October 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN NF Marriage Index 1920-1922	2168861
CAN ON Kent Co. M 1925	2413310
CAN ON Lanark Co. M 1925	2413311
CAN ON Simcoe Co. Marriages 1925	2413322
IRE CAV Kilmore 1911 Census	0812123
ITL Pachino births	1466349
POL Lezajsk (Krzeszow) RC PR 1810-	2002535

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

Were you aware..................

Irish Census Records for 1901 and 1911
The Irish census records will be starting to go online this fall at www.nationalarchives.ie. There will be both nominal indexes and the actual census images -- all free of charge. They will go on in stages, starting with the 1911 records for Dublin and then Belfast and eventually covering all 32 counties, including those now in Northern Ireland. They will be accompanied by contextual matter about the history and social conditions and wonderful pictures from the collection of the National Library of Ireland. Catriona Crowe, the Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland, was interviewed about the Irish Census Project on CBC Radio One, Ontario Today, on Monday, September 17. You can link to the interview at http://www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/story_archive.html. In order to listen to the broadcast you will need to have RealPlayer software on your computer. You can download this from: http://www.real.com.

Who Do You Think You Are?

The CBC is producing a Canadian Version of Who Do You Think You Are?, the genealogical documentary show that follows celebrities as they discover the truth behind a family legend. The series was originally created for the BBC and has been extremely popular there. It is scheduled to premiere on Thursday 11 October 2007 at 7:30pm and will have 13 parts showcasing Canadian celebrities (like Don Cherry, Margot Kidder and Chantal Kreviazuk).

BT27 Overseas Passenger Lists Departing from UK Ports

James Thomson reports that an additional decade (1930-1939) of BT 27 passenger lists for overseas voyages departing from ports in the United Kingdom has now been uploaded to www.ancestorsonboard.com .

Missing UK Marriage Index Entries

Jean Harris alerts us to the fact that a few entries are missing from the published GRO marriage indexes for 1856, 1858 & 1861. These missing entries are available at the following website: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/StCathsTranscriptions/#Missing .

Toronto Family History Centre Current Opening Hours.

Monday 9.30 a.m to 4 p.m.

Tuesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Evening hours 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. starting October 2.

Wednesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Thursday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Friday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closing at 2pm on September 21.

Saturday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Should you decide that you no longer wish to receive this bulletin, return this email with the word "Delete" in the subject line.

Toronto Family History Centre

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
24 Ferrand Drive (Don Mills & Eglinton)
Phone: 416 422 5480 Ext. 111.

Email: Toronto_FHC@bellnet.ca

TOP

TUGG HOMEPAGE

Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 37/2007

Please keep sending your questions and answers for The Forum and information for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be The Scottish Lowland Counties.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - September Meeting of Toronto Branch of OGS and more information on the Scottish Family History Workshop

Two new questions in The Forum

News from the trenches - a couple of amusing stories

In Were you aware... that the National Burial Index has 13.2 million Records and that our Family History Centre Library can help you decipher those ancient and foreign documents and, finally, James Thomson reminds us of the proposed launch tomorrow of online indexes to and images of certain English Non-Parochial Registers.

Announcements

Toronto OGS Meeting The next meeting of the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society will be held on September 24, 2007 at 7:30 pm in the Burgundy Room of the North York Civic Centre (concourse level). The speaker, Bill Bienia, will talk about Genealogical Software Progams. He will compare four of the leading genealogical programs for the PC (RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, Legacy, and The Master Genealogist). Topics will include ease of use, source citations, augmenting bare facts, creating narratives and chronological profiles, generating charts and reports, books and Web sites, and using data with other programs such as word processors and spreadsheets. From 6:15 pm some members will be there with some of the programs on laptops for informal discussion. Guests are welcome to attend, particularly those who can assist with the pre-meeting demonstrations. If you are willing to help, please contact Linda Reid at reidlinda@rogers.com.

Scottish Family History Workshop - Exploring Scottish Ancestry

The Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has announced the line-up of speakers and topics for the Scottish Family History Workshop to be held in Toronto on Saturday, November 10, 2007 at the North York Central Library Auditorium. Both beginners and experienced researchers will find topics of interest. Sessions are as listed below:

A: Scottish Emigration & Canadian Settlement: An Historical Overview - Dr. Kevin James

B: Building a Scottish Family Tree Using ScotlandsPeople - Marian Press

C: Scotland's Other Congregations and Churches: Looking for Records - Sherry Irvine

D: Question and Answer Panel

E: Tour of the North York Central Library's Canadiana Department

F: Scottish Pedigree Analysis: From the late 19th century back over 100 years - Linda Reid

G: A Survey of Scottish Family History Resources on the GTA - James Thompson

H: Valuation Rolls in Scotland - Sherry Irvine

I: General Register Office for Scotland - Paul McGrath

Full details, along with downloadable registration form, are available at www.torontofamilyhistory.org/scottish.html, or by request from 416-733-2608. The program's sponsor is the St. Andrew's Society of Toronto and the program is supported by the Canadiana Department of North York Central Library.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's favourite counties will be The Scottish Lowland Counties. These include: Ayr, Berwick, Haddington (East Lothian), Edinburgh (Midlothian), Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peeble, Lanark, Linlithgow (West Lothian), Renfrew, Dunfermline, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown. Please send us suggestions of websites you have found helpful.

Last week's county was Essex. Frances Radford sent us the following three websites:

http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/login.asp - Essex Archives Online

http://www.essexchurches.com/ _Photographs of Essex Churches

http://www.essexpast.net/ - Victorian County History of Essex

Margaret Taylor adds:

Essex Surname List - http://freespace.virgin.net/annemarie.shuttle/

Essex Villages Site - http://www.essexvillages.net/index.html

London, Essex & Kent Pubs, Inns, Taverns & Beer Houses History & Trade Directory - http://essexpub.net/

Essex County Council Website(Local Studies) - http://www.essexcc.gov.uk/vip8/ecc/ECCWebsite/dis/guc.jsp?channelOid=15524&guideOid=17103&guideContentOid=15563

A recent addition to the Online Parish Clerks: - http://essex-opc.org.uk/AboutUs.php

The Forum

New Questions

Q1/37/2007. Czech Republic .

Does the FHC have microfilms of records in the Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia, formerly Bohemia? If so, how do I find them?

Q2/37/2007. UK.

What does "of this parish" really mean in UK marriage records? I have seen the phrase for people seemingly born elsewhere and living elsewhere not long before or after. It implies a person with a residence in the parish but how long do they have to lived there or does it mean anything else?

Q3/37/2007. UK .

A musical question - The tail end of a roasted turkey, the spade shaped part, is referred to as the parson's nose, or the pope's nose, depending on your religious affiliation. When I was very young, dinner at my Grandparents house would often be roast turkey. As it was trotted in to the table, my Grandfather would start to sing a song about the parson's nose, which must have had suggestive lyrics unsuitable for youngsters as Grandmother would always hush him up in short order, to the guffaws of all the male adults present. My Grandfather died when I was only eight so I never learned the words to The Parson's nose song. Can anyone recall this, because I want to start singing it to my nieces and nephews at carving time?

Q4/37/2007. UK/Newfoundland.

I am seeking advice regarding searching for my ancestors in Devon. My great-great grandfather, Robert Woodman, settled in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland in or about 1812. He married a Priscilla but we have not located a marriage record that might have parental information. They had a first child in 1815, but the baptismal record contains no additional information. Based on Robert's grave stone he died in 1868 age 85 which puts his birth about 1783. Family folklore says he was from Devon and left England with two brothers, one of whom went on to settle in the Maritimes, perhaps PEI, and the other in the USA, perhaps near Boston. Based on the repeated family names, I would guess at their likely first names being either John, James, William or Edward. I have been told that only a small number of Parish records have been filmed by the IGI/FHC, and to find a Woodman family in Devon, who had 3 sons born in the late 1700s who did not marry or die there would be impossible, because of the number of Parish records to search. And as yet I do not know Robert's birth town, nor the names of his parents. Could someone suggest a way over this brick wall?

Films received in the 7 days ending 13 September 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 11 October 2007

NO FILMS RECEIVED THIS WEEK

News from the trenches

Many thanks to Paul Branson for contributing the following stories:

After the Crimean War in the 1850's, His Majesty, the King of Sardinia, saw fit to award 400 medals to British troops for exceptional displays of Military Valour. Here is an excerpt from the rolls outlining the bravery of Private P. McGuire, AND the reason he never received his medal.

No. 3510 Private P, McGuire.... Was in advance on the 18th of June 1855 in the attack and capture of the cemetery by the Second Brigade Third Division. Was one of those who reached close under the Russian Batteries. Though severely wounded in the left hand, he remained at his post during the whole day, firing on the Russian Embrasures.

Why did he not receive his decoration for this meritorious service? A hand written note in the margin explains all.

"has deserted since he was recommended for the medal"

Many family researchers who are also interested in history will know that public schooling started in England around 1865. As a teenager I would often visit my Great Uncle Horace to visit/interrogate him for family information. He told me that when he was in school, in order to remember a date, the kids were often taught a song or verse. Here are the words to a song he related to me about the start of the public school system in England, and you can tell, for what may have been the norm a generation earlier, there was now a stigma attached to people who lacked schooling or were illiterate. Dear old Uncle Horace was not much of a singer, so I do not remember the tune!

The members of our school board

must be men of common sense

To do their duty nobly, without the least offence

And for those who must still work

To keep their families alive,

Should be free of persecution, in 1865

Were you aware..................

The Family History Centre has the set of four CDs of the National Burial Index. These CDs contain 13.2 million burial records in England and Wales and complements the International Genealogical Index (IGI) which is mainly a finding aid to baptisms and marriages. It is very fast and easy to use. This is a volunteer project by the local family history societies, and some of the counties are better covered than others. As pointed out last week coverage of Hertfordshire is almost complete for burials up to 1837; and this week's county, Essex, has more than half a million recorded burials listed. If you do find any ancestors on the National Burial Index, do order in the LDS film to check the original parish records, if they are available. You never know what interesting tidbits you might find - occasionally the parish clerk will write "Small Pox" or "Cholera" or "Suicide" or something much more interesting.

Our Family History Centre's library is another underused resource. A couple of the more useful books are:

Abbreviations and Acronyms - Did you know that vid. means widow? or that vf. is a widower? or that av. is years lived (annos vixit)? or IGI is International Genealogical Index? Have a look at this book when you come across a term you do not understand.

Following the Paper Trail - A Multilingual Translation Guide - This excellent guide is broken down into four basic sections by language groups - Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Other. Each language within each group is starts with the alphabet and then proceeds with examples of documents and writing and common forenames in each country, and concludes each language with a genealogical dictionary. One of our researchers of German records has relied entirely on this book for translations of the records she has been looking at.

The books in our FHC Library have a rather unorthodox filing system: the general interest books have a series of blue dots (the two examples above have 4 blue dots for Interpretation of Records); books on Asia have gold stars; Canadian books have red dots; books about the States have green dots; books on England have red stars; Ireland has green stars; Scotland has blue stars; and Wales has yellow dots. For a list of our books, have a look in the grey FHL books folder on bookcase 3, shelf 4. A more detailed explanation of the filing system can be found in the back.

Non-Parochial Registers in England & Wales (RG 4, RG 5, RG 6, RG 7, and RG 8). James Thomson writes: "As a brief follow-up to last week's extensive piece about the fact that these series at The National Archives (at Kew) are being digitized, don't forget that tomorrow, September 14, is the scheduled launch day for series RG 4 and RG 5 at: www.bmdregisters.co.uk ; more information about these series is on this website and in last week's Bulletin. The official names of these series is as follows:

RG 4: Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths Surrendered to Non-Parochial Registers Commissions

RG 5: Birth Certificates from the Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist Registry and from the Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry, 1742-1840

I look forward to seeing how this information is presented online.

Some of these records, as noted in http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/people/nonconformist.htm , have at least been partially indexed before; both the IGI and the British Isles Vital Records Index (2nd edition, on CD at the Family History Centres and the Toronto Reference Library), for instance, contain some entries drawn from these series. I have read that the IGI is estimated to include about 80% of entries in TNA’s RG 4 class. The British Isles Vital Records Index notably includes many entries from:

a) The Protestant Dissenters Registry (Dr. Williams’ Library) (containing records of nearly 50,000 pre-1837 births of children born to Baptist, Presbyterian or Independent/Congregationalist families; note that parents of the mother may be given)

b) The Wesleyan Methodist and Metropolitan Registry (10,000 births and baptisms, most 1818-1837; again, parents of the mother may be given)."

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TUGG HOMEPAGE

Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 36/2007

We received a couple of questions for The Forum this week but please send us more questions or gems for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Essex.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - Re-opening on Tuesday evenings on October 2

Acquisitions in Additions to our Permanent Collections

A couple of new questions in The Forum and an answer to last week's Polish question

In Were you aware... Toronto OGS offers a one day Scottish Family History Workshop and Fall Courses in Genealogy; and James Thomson describes five new developments which we can look forward to, the first happening at the end of next week..

Announcements

The Family History Centre will be opening on Tuesday evenings 6:30-9:30 starting on October 2, for the winter.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

BOOK CAN Western Canadian Directories on microfiche and microfilm - A Finding Aid

CD ENG SRY Stoke D'Abernon Bap 1619-1812; Mar 1620-1812; Bur 1619-1812 (not complete)

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's favourite county will be Essex. Please send us suggestions of websites you have found helpful.

Last week's counties were Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. The Hertfordshire Family History Society has transcribed all the burial data (137,000 entries) for the 138 parishes in Hertfordshire from 1800 to 1837. It is part of the National Burial Index CD set which the Family History Centre has as part of its CD collection. The NBI includes the following information (where available): forename(s) and surname of the deceased; date of burial; age (if available); and details of the place where this was recorded. The CD set can be found on the bottom shelf of bookshelf three. Bedfordshire burials are also very well represented on these CDs, with approximately 356,000 burials listed for their 141 parishes.

Carol Lewis has again contributed many interesting websites - this time for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire:

Genealogy in Hertfordshire - http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/index.htm

Hertfordshire old maps - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/hrt.htm

Leighton Linslade Past Times - http://www.leighton-linslade.com/

Pictures of Olde Tring - http://www.oldtring.co.uk/

Hemel Hempstead War Memorial - http://www.dacorumheritage.org.uk/ww1-rolls-HemelHempstead.htm

Hertfordshire Family History Society - http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/websites/hfphs.htm

Bedfordshire Family History Society - http://www.bfhs.org.uk/

Bedfordshire Towns and Villages Photo Album - http://www.countyviews.com/beds/index.htm

Bedfordshire Gaol - http://www.schools.bedfordshire.gov.uk/gaol/

Poll Book of Bedfordshire 1722 - http://www.rabancourt.co.uk/abacus/p1722h.html

Poll Book of Bedfordshire 1784 - http://www.rabancourt.co.uk/abacus/p1784h.html

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives - http://blars.adlibsoft.com/form.html

Biggleswade History Society - http://www.biggleswadehistory.org.uk/

An incorrect Buckinghamshire link was given last week. The Index to Robson's 1839 Directory of Buckinghamshire by David Kolle is - for names A-F: http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/BKM/Directories/bucksdira.html ; for names G-O: http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/BKM/Directories/bucksdirg.html and for names P-Y: http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/BKM/Directories/bucksdirp.html .

The Forum

Answers: Q2/35/2007 Poland

My cousin believes her mother, born in 1907, was from a town in Poland called Swintsian. Could someone suggest where this town might likely have been, and how the name might be properly spelled and pronounced?

Many thanks to Paul Jones for the following comprehensive answer: "I went to JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org/ ) and entered Swintsian in the search engine. My rationale: So many eastern European communities had a significant Jewish community in days of yore and have been extensively studied by Jewish genealogists.

Three communities came up. One was in SW Germany and can be easily dispensed with. Another Zbąszyń, 345 km west of Warsaw, was known as Bentschen c. 1900 and was part of Germany, so it doesn’t sound too convincing either.

The third, corresponding to one of the target communities identified by your correspondent, is variously written as Švenčionys [Lith], Sventzion [Yid], Święciany [Pol], Shventsian [Rus], Svencionyz, Shvintzion, Shvyentsiani, Shvyetsiani, Svenchan, Sventsian, Sventsiany, Swenziany, Svintzian and is part of present-day Lithuania. Between the wars, c. 1930, it was part of Poland, but before WWI, c. 1900, it was in the Russian Empire. This yo-yo existence certainly fits with the suspicions of the questioner. Note the also the almost exact identity between Swintsian as posed in the question and Shventsian as the town was c. 1900, as well as two of the name variants Swenziany and Svintzian. I’m not saying this is the right place—but it surely deserves to be studied carefully until something better comes along.

Your correspondent can pursue this further by going to http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Svencionys/svencionys.html where there is geographical and historical information about the town (albeit from a predominantly Jewish perspective), along with links suggesting further research, including one to the current municipal website (although it’s not in English!).

It might also be worth talking with someone who actually knows something about this part of the world, maybe someone from the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada ( Toronto) - www.jgstoronto.ca/About.html ."

New Questions

Q1/36/2007. Canada.

Our fame spreads! We are now receiving e-mails from England with new questions. "I am interested in obtaining a full birth certificate for one of my ancestors -WILBERT FRANK DREDGE who was born in Nepenee, Ontario 25th October 1891." Using this sparse information, FHC staff were able to find the marriage of Wilbert's parents in Napanee and Wilbert's marriage to Bertha Vosburgh in South Frederickburgh. But we have been unable to find birth certificates for either Wilbert or Bertha. In 1901 Wilbert is living with his maternal grandparents - George and Minerva Keller. We found no trace of the death of Wilbert's parents - Harry or Harvey and Minnie. Could anyone suggest a further avenue for exploration? What percentage of births and deaths were registered in Ontario around that time frame?

Q2/36/2007. USA.

My immigrant ancestors spent their first few years (1905-1906) in Freehold, New Jersey. I only know that they communicated by mail at a P.O. Box there, and we believe they lived on a farm, possibly with a relative. Would anyone know how to trace the owners of US Post Box Numbers?

Films received in the 7 days ending 6 September 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 4 October 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN NF Marriage Index 1892-1920	2168860
CAN NF Marriage Returns 1913-1922	2168997
CAN NF Placentia RC PR 1822-1944	2169241
CAN NF Placentia RC PR 1822-1944	2169240
CAN ON Carleton marriages 1925	2412462
CAN ON Victoria marriages 1925	2413330
CAN PQ Quebec St Patrick's CRs 1888-1896	1853794
DEU Mittelreidenbach PR 1755-1889	0584949
DEU Sien PR 1704-27, 1798-1869	0556072
ENG CON Scilly Isles PRs 1726 - 1834	0254230
ENG DEV Exeter Death Dty Reg 1796-	1368367
ENG DUR Chester-le-Street PR 1582-	0091090
ENG ESS Little Waltham PR 1538-1875	1526972
ENG HER Weston-Beggard PR 1591-	1040030
ENG LAN St Thomas L'pool BMD 1821 - 1875	1068943
ENG LEI Ashby de la Zouch BTs 1563-	0585295
ENG MDX Spitalfields PR mar 1783-1812	0592625
ENG MDX St Martin in Fields PR 1550-	0560373
ENG SOM Pitminster BTs 1597 - 1836	1470913
ENG WO 69/120 description books RA	0866580
ENG WO 69/79 description books RA	0866546
GRD Register of Records 1889-1894	1563414
IND Bombay CMBs 1835	0623839
IRE CAV Kilmore 1911 Census	0812125
ITL Pachino marriages	1466350
ITL Petilia Policastro PR 1866-1910	2164072
NLD Ede BMD 10 year tables 1883-1892	0518718
NLD Oldemarkt births 1863-1912	1300058
POL Lezajsk (Krzeszow) RC PR 1853-	2002536
POL Lodz Belchatow Births 1841-1851	0681034
RUS Zhitomir Metrical Books 1843-1885	1884071
SVK Nova Lesna Evang PRs 1859 - 1946	1791937
UKR L'viv Gk Cath Metr.Bks 1784-1847	1925039
UKR Zalszczyk RC PR 178-1881	2329199
USA NY NY City Marriage Index 1888-97	1653852

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Last week's feature on the County of Buckinghamshire mentioned a website for looking up wills of ancestors - http://apps.buckscc.gov.uk/eforms/wills/search.aspx. Helen Billing used the website (which she had submitted!) and found a number of useful wills, of which she had been unaware. The note last week mentioned that copies of the wills could be purchased by mail but once the date has been ascertained, the appropriate LDS film can easily be ordered.

Were you aware..................

The Toronto branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is offering a one day workshop on Scottish family history research on November 10, 2007. For more information on this and their fall offering of family history courses, please see their website: http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/courses.html .

James Thomson alerts us to future developments on five fronts in British Isles research, as follows:

" 1. Passenger Lists: Arrivals in the United Kingdom.

In Bulletin 32/2007, of August 9, 2007, I answered a question which had been submitted to the Forum and which related in part to eastbound transatlantic passenger manifests, from North America to the British Isles. Just as there is a record series containing lists of westbound transatlantic passengers (and passengers on other voyages headed for ports overseas) prepared at the point of embarkation in the United Kingdom (series BT 27 at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, London, entitled Board of Trade Passenger Lists Outwards, 1890-1960 – the series being indexed and digitized at http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/ ), so there is a record series containing eastbound transatlantic passenger lists (and lists of passengers on other voyages which originated at ports overseas) prepared at the point of arrival in the United Kingdom: the Board of Trade Passenger Lists Inwards, 1878-1960, which are held at TNA as series BT 26. For more information about the BT 26 series, see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=106 , http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=243 and http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/passengers.htm.

In answering the Forum question, I had noted that, as part of its 2005-2011 digitization program, the aim of which is to place digital copies of all of TNA's most popular series online by 2011, TNA had indicated that it hoped to launch a project to digitize and index the BT 26 lists sometime this year, with a completion date of 2009. There has been important news since. The partner in this undertaking now has been announced as Ancestry.co.uk, and it is hoped that some results from this indexing and digitization project may be uploaded as early as the fall of 2008. If, as with current Ancestry.co.uk databases, the resulting database is included in AncestryLibraryEdition, then, absent some catastrophic change in the status quo, such database would be freely accessible to all Toronto Public Library (TPL) cardholders at all TPL branches.

How terrific it will be to be able to follow ancestors back and forth across the Atlantic, using tools such as (a) Ancestry's US Immigration Collection, containing indexes to and images of passenger lists prepared at the point of arrival in the US; (b) the equivalent databases for 1865-1935 Canadian passenger lists and related records being undertaken by Library and Archives Canada and Ancestry.ca (see my earlier e-mail); (c) the indexes, transcriptions and images of 1890-1960 passenger lists prepared at the point of departure from ports in the UK and now uploaded in part at www.ancestorsonboard.com ; and (d) this new database comprised of indexes to and digital images of 1878-1960 passenger lists (for eastbound transatlantic and other incoming voyages which originated overseas) prepared at the port of arrival in the UK. Remember also that ports now in the Republic of Ireland were included in the definition of UK ports up to the very early 1920s.

2. Registration of Aliens

Three other TNA series relating to immigration to the UK are being digitized and indexed by Ancestry.co.uk as part of the same general project, as follows:

HO 2 (Home Office: Aliens Act 1836: Certificates of Arrival of Aliens, 1836-1852)
HO 3 (Home Office: Aliens Act 1836: Returns and Papers, 1836-1860 and 1867-1869)
HO 5 (Home Office: Aliens' Entry Books, 1794-1921)

For more information about the content of these series, see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=243#13 and http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/alien.htm

3. Non-Parochial Registers in England & Wales (RG 4, RG 5, RG 6, RG 7, and RG 8)

In February 2007, it was announced (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/151.htm) that S&N Genealogy Supplies Ltd. would index and digitize several well-used TNA record series, including the series RG 4 to RG 8 inclusive, which contain "Non-Parochial Registers" from England and Wales. For more information about these series, see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/people/nonconformist.htm but note that RG 4 - RG 8 do not include just Protestant nonconformist records (such as Quaker, Methodist, Independent, Baptist and Presbyterian records etc.); as Amanda Bevan notes on page 46 of Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: the Website and Beyond (7th edition, 2006), "...in addition to several thousand Protestant Nonconformist registers, the collection also includes a number of Church of England registers from churches outside the usual parish structure, 77 Catholic registers, a few registers of foreign churches in England and some cemetery registers." Various records of clandestine marriages are also included -- many, though, of uncertain reliability.

Next week's Bulletin will describe these series at greater length, as we will then be on the eve of the appearance online of the first fruits of this project: indexes to and digital images of two of these series, RG 4 and RG 5, are scheduled to launch at www.bmdregisters.co.uk on September 14, 2007, a week from tomorrow. For information about the launch, see http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/launch_info.php and http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/launch_info_list.php . (Many thanks also to Marian Press for having alerted me to the fact that the launch is reported as well in Family Tree magazine.)

Some of these records, as noted in http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/people/nonconformist.htm , have at least been partially indexed before; both the IGI and the British Isles Vital Records Index (2nd edition, on CD), for instance, contain some entries drawn from these series. The webpage just noted also refers to digest registers on microfilm at the Society of Friends Library in London; these manuscript Quaker records (compiled prior to the transmission of the registers themselves and their eventual deposit at TNA as series RG6) are also available at the Toronto (Don Mills) FHC.

4. Births, Deaths & Marriages at Sea

The digitization and indexing project referred to in the preceding section also will include, in due course, these three TNA series respecting British-registered vessels and/or UK nationals (for more information, see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=246 and the sources mentioned therein):

BT 158: Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages of Passengers at Sea (births 1854-1890, deaths 1854-1890, marriages 1858-1883)

BT 159: Registers of Deaths at Sea of British Nationals, 1875-1891

BT 160: Registers of Births at Sea of British Nationals, 1875-1891

For launch information, see: http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/launch_info_list.php .

Note that BT 158 registers can now (and in future) be freely consulted on microfilm at the Toronto (Don Mills) FHC; the film numbers are 1419469-1419472 inclusive. For the BT 158 registers, see also http://www.findmypast.com/resources/bmdatsea/ .

5. Overseas Baptisms, Marriages and Burials of UK Nationals

The digitization and indexing project referred to in Section 3, above, also will include, in due course, the TNA series RG 32 to RG 36 inclusive, containing non-statutory returns of certain overseas births/baptisms, marriages and deaths/burials deposited with the Registrar General (for more information see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/overseas.htm ). For launch information, see: http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/launch_info_list.php

The first webpage in the preceding paragraph refers also to records of baptisms, marriages and burials in British India; remember that indexes to these are held at the Toronto (Don Mills) FHC, and that the original entries on microfilm can be borrowed from Salt Lake City. Lastly, the same webpage refers as well to registers and transcripts (of entries of overseas baptisms, marriages and burials) now at the Guildhall Library (for which, see also http://www.history.ac.uk/gh/overseas.htm); I understand that more good news on this front, also, may soon be forthcoming from the Toronto (Don Mills) FHC."

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TUGG HOMEPAGE

Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 35/2007

We received a few questions for The Forum this week but new questions or information for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections are really helpful. Next week's counties for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

In this Bulletin

Announcements - Holiday closing

Acquisitions in Additions to our Permanent Collections

Three questions to set you thinking in The Forum

In Were you aware... James Thomson describes the new (beta) interface for free searches in historical issues of the London Gazette; we list the Toronto OGS Fall Courses in Genealogy; Margaret Taylor tells us of Genealogy Podcasts (!)

Announcements

As announced last week, the Family History Centre will be closed this Saturday and Monday for the holiday weekend.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

New fiche have arrived to augment our permanent collection:

6128583 ENG NTH Peterborough St. John Baptisms 1789-1807; Burials 1781-1807

6142044 ENG OXF Hethe (Heath) St Edmund & St George Bap 1679-1997; Mar 1701-1997; Ban 1755-1994; Bur 1678-1997

6129458 ENG NTH Woodford nr Thrapston PRs Baptisms 1806-1812; Burials 1801-1812

6129474 ENG NTH Woodford nr Thrapston PRs Baptisms & Marriages 1764-1812

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's counties will be Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. If you have found any useful internet sites for these counties, please let us know. Last week's county was Buckinghamshire.

Carol Lewis has contributed a great list of internet sites:

The Buckinghamshire Surname List - http://webpages.charter.net/dcarlsen/genuki/BKM/bucksurname.html

The Buckinghamshire Family History Society - They have a new online store where you can purchase parish records for some parishes, on fiche, paper or CDs which are easy to use and great aids for research. They also have other records available. They have a data base of birth, marriage and burial records for many parishes and offer searches of these for a reasonable fee. - http://www.bucksfhs.org.uk/

1841 census transcriptions for:

Gt. Marlow - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~maryc/marlow1841.htm

Aylesbury - http://www.lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/aylesbury1841.html

Waddesdon - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~lanchbury/waddesdon1841.html

Hedgerley - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~lanchbury/hedgerley1841.html

Grandborough - http://www.lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/bledlow1500.html

Fulmer - http://www.lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/fulmer1841.html

Transcription of Parish Register for Bledlow Ridge - http://www.lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/bledlow1500.html

All of the above census and parish registers transcriptions can be found at the Lanchbury site map - http://www.lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/sitemap.html

A one place study of Wing, Buckinghamshire - http://www.wing-ops.org.uk/index.html

Victorian Prisoners, Aylesbury Gaol - http://apps.buckscc.gov.uk/eforms/libPrisoners/index.aspx

County Photos Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire - http://www.countyviews.com/

Buckinghamshire Poll 1784 - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pobjoyoneill/ENGPOLLS/buck1784.html

Beautiful pictures and some local history for the area around Lacey Green - http://www.petergoodearl.co.uk/laceygreen/speen/speen.htm

Another reader adds a few more sites:

Buckinghamshire Wills Index On-Line - http://apps.buckscc.gov.uk/eforms/wills/search.aspx Archdeaconry of Buckingham Wills 1483-1858. Searchable Index of testators. Wills may be purchased by post.

The People of Tingewick - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~tingewick/ A very comprehensive look at the inhabitants of Tingewick, complete with family trees, pictures, census transcriptions, etc.

Pigots's Trade Directory 1830 - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Epobjoyoneill/tradedir/bkm1830/bkm1830.htm An index of the trades people of Bucks giving their location and the page number of the original publication.

Robson's Directory 1839 - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Epobjoyoneill/tradedir/bkm1830/bkm1830.htm An index of names with trade and location.

Bucks Family Websites - http://www.rootsweb.com/~engbkm/websites.html A list of the families of Bucks who have their own website.

The Forum

New Questions

Q1/35/2007. England.

In the 1901 Henry Cook, a groom, is shown as living in Great Holland, Essex "In the Street" as were many other families. Almost all seem to be employed. What does this mean?

Basically this means that Harry is living on " Main Street". Because Great Holland is rather small, despite its name, there was no need for street names or numbers in 1901. The Street was enough for the postman to find Harry. Because Great Holland is so small, using old Ordnance Survey maps you can probably pinpoint the very house Harry lived in. Go to Old-Maps-UK: http://www.old-maps.co.uk/indexmappage2.aspx and enter "Great Holland, Essex" in the Search Bar. A map of the town will appear. Scroll down and you can chose a map of three different dates. As the census to which you refer is 1901, try looking at the 1898 map. On the census page, you will notice that Harry is living right next to Manor Farm. So his house is the dot to the right of Manor Farm and the other residents who are living "In the Street" are living in other buildings along the main road.

Q2/35/2007. Poland.

My cousin believes her mother, born in 1907, was from a town in Poland called Swintsian. We know that the people from that geography called their area " Poland" but it may, in fact, have been Russia. Because of spelling and transliteration, I am not sure where the town is located or how it would be pronounced or spelled in the correct language. I have found two likely locations. The first is about 50 km north-east of Vilnius in today's Lithuania, called Svencionys, and the other possibility is in today's Poland, either Szczecin or Szczecinek. Could someone suggest where this town might likely have been, and how the name might be properly spelled and pronounced?

Q3/35/2007. England.

Our reader writes that "his wife's family is causing him problems" (only genealogically, we trust): One of my wife's relatives married Edward Kennard born 1829 Bologne. How can I learn if he were a British or a French Subject ? None of the censuses that I have seen has indicated anything, nor does the IGI.

Films received in the 7 days ending 30 August 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 27 September 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN NB Saint John Cathdl PR 1855-1861	0861217
CAN NB Saint John Cathdl PR 1862-1868	0861218
CAN NB Saint John Cathdl PR 1868-1873	0861219
CAN NB Saint John RC PR 1837-1858	1412416
ENG LAN Mancheser cathedral burials	2357001
ENG LAN Ringley St. Saviour's pr	2356506
ENG Mil. Recs. (Unburnt) 1914-1920 G	1735234
ENG wills 1891 'H'	1544514
ENG YKS Northowram PRs 1744-1837	0828149
ENG YKS Skelbrooke BT 1609-1836	0919308
NLD Medemblik RC PR 1664-1811	0115813
NLD Medemblik RC PR 1750-1811	0115816
WLS DEN Wrexham Ruthin Road Mis	2276537

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

Were you aware..................

United Kingdom . Gazettes Online. James Thomson writes: “A new and improved (beta) interface for free searches of archived issues (back to February 1665/6) of the London Gazette (and, in due course at least, the Edinburgh Gazette for Scotland and the Belfast Gazette for Northern Ireland), is available at http://beta.gazettes-online.co.uk/ . This is the official (government) newspaper of record, and here we find things such as, by way of example: notices of and citations for honours, awards and medals, and of admissions to orders of chivalry; announcements of military, naval and militia appointments and changes of rank; official despatches during wartime; notices of civil, church and legal appointments; announcements of changes of name; notices respecting the naturalization of aliens; and notices or advertisements respecting company and partnership dissolutions, insolvencies and bankruptcies, and claims respecting estates, etc.. There are useful descriptions at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/official-publications/gazettes.htm and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gazette .

An "Advanced Search" interface for searches in the archived issues is at http://beta.gazettes-online.co.uk/AdvancedSearch.aspx ; search terms are entered in the "Words" section, and there is an option to restrict the search to a date range of one's choice (or to certain pre-defined "historic events", such as World War 1). (There is also a "Search Builder" facility at http://beta.gazettes-online.co.uk/SearchBuilder.aspx?Step=1 which permits one to construct a search one step at a time.) The results which are returned are presented first as snippets; if any one looks interesting, click on "See PDF" to launch Adobe Reader and see a digital image of the full relevant page of the Gazette. If one then wants to go back a page or forward a page within the Gazette, change the page number in the "Go to Page" box above the digital image, and click on "Go". Happy searching!"

Autumn Family History Courses

The Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is offering a number of diverse and interesting courses this fall:

Basic Genealoy and Family History - Jane MacNamara

Introduction to English Family History Research - Linda Reid

Researching Community & Municipal Records at the Archives of Ontario - James Gordon & Keisha Gordon

Wehe There's a Will, There's a Way: Finding Ontario Estate Files - Jane MacNamara

Advertising Your Ancestors - Marian Press

Finding Your ancestors in Newspapers - Marian Press

British Army Records - James Thompson

More detailed course information can be found on the OGS website: courses@torontofamilyhistory.org

Podcasts

Magaret Taylor write to tell us of podcasts produced by the National Archives, available free for download from:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/rss/podcasts.xml

There are currently 23 podcasts available including Wills; Births and Deaths at Sea; and Sources and Resources at the Family Records Centre.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 34/2007

Please send us more questions as we have received no new questions for The Forum or interesting tidbits for the Were you aware...........section. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Buckinghamshire.

In this Bulletin

FHC holiday closures in Announcements

Acquisitions in Additions to our Permanent Collections

Book Sale in News from the Trenches

Announcements

The Toronto Family History Centre will be closed on Thursday, August 30 due to staff holidays.

It will also be closed for the Labour Day holiday on Saturday, September 1 and Monday, September 3.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

The Family History Centre has purchased 13 CD's from the Manchester & Lancashire Family History Society. They are transcripts of much of the 1851 census for Manchester, Salford and the surrounding area which were damaged by water while in storage, making them impossible to film. The data recovery on each CD ranges from 57% to 97%. Below is the description of each CD and the FHC CD number. You will find them on the third shelf of the third bookcase.

BR35	ENG LAN Ashton-under-Lyne 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR36	ENG LAN Chorlton-on-Medlock 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR37	ENG LAN Ardwick 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR38	ENG LAN Prestwich, Blackley & Harpurhey 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR39	ENG LAN Pendleton & Pendlebury 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR40	ENG LAN Oldham Below Town 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR41	ENG LAN Salford, Greengate 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR42	ENG LAN Manchester, St George 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR43	ENG LAN Hulme 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR44	ENG LAN Deansgate 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR45	ENG LAN London Road 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR46	ENG LAN Rusholme, Gorton & Openshaw 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)
BR47	ENG LAN Salford, Regent Road 1851 Census Unfilmed Returns (Transcripts)

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's county will be Buckinghamshire. Please send us your suggestions.

This week's county is Suffolk. We received the following ideas from Margaret Taylor:

Suffolk Record Office: http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/LocalHistoryandHeritage/SuffolkRecordOffice/

Suffolk Surnames of interest: www.suffolk-surnames-list.co.uk

RAOGK ( Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) Look ups by volunteers:(Scroll down for England/Suffolk)

http://www.raogk.org/england.htm

and of course Genuki: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SFK/

Ellen Maki writes: Here are some websites that I have found useful in my Suffolk research:

Index to cemeteries located along the Waveney River The Waveney District Council Cemetery Index: http://www.waveney.gov.uk/Environment/Cemeteries/cemeteries_index.htm (The records for Lowestoft are particularly useful going back to the late 1800’s.)

The Cosford database is run by Ray Long: http://fp.raylong.plus.com/

The following site doesn’t contain any genealogical information, but it’s interesting to see our ancestors’ places of worship. http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/ (It has excellent pictures of 585 Suffolk churches with accompanying text describing the churches. Check out Southwold St. Edmund - the pictures of the rood screen and the carved hand rests in the choir stall are quite amazing.)

4. The Suffolk Family History Society: http://www.suffolkfhs.co.uk/ (It has a very good links page.)

More Welsh sites: Thanks to Sheila Emblem who found the following sites very helpful in researching her ancestors in Flintshire, NE Wales:

http://www.clwydfhs.org.uk/index.shtml

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mossvalley/index.html ;

http://www.northwalesbmd.org.uk/

Vida Preece writes: 'One of my favourite ways to look up names is the following. I go to the Google search engine. I then type in the name of an ancestor inside quotes. i.e. "Thomas Brown" I sometimes add the spouse in separate quotes. "Isabel Watt". I then put in the name of a place such as Murroes. It's amazing how often I find someone who is also researching the same people.'

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/33/2007. Canada. Eleazar King (Roy? Roi? Leroy?) was born in Lower Canada ( Quebec) in 1811/12. His descendants were listed as "French" on the census forms, so obviously his name must have been changed. He was married and lived for a time in the Niagara region (St Davids) before moving to Brantford. Would anyone have an idea as to how I might go about tracking down Eleazar and his ancestors?

Susan Hampton suggests: The person trying to track down Eleazar King/Roy/Roi/Leroy may find this site useful: http://www.bms2000.org/default.aspx

This site was one of many recommended by the Societe Franco-Ontarienne at a course held at the North York Reference Library last spring. To access the site, a password is required, which can be obtained without charge. Limited information can be obtained for free, but there is a small charge for more complete information. The details of Catholic marriages which occurred in the province of Quebec and in some northern Ontario parishes are provided on this site. A certificate lists the name of the bride and groom, their parents, former spouses (if any) and the date and place of the marriage. There are many options for searching. One can search by the name (or first part thereof) of either spouse or of the parents of the bride or the groom. There are also some baptism and burial records available.

The North York Reference Library also holds a number of parish records, available upon request. If you know the area where the wedding likely occurred, you may be able to track down some information this way.

Your editor found in the Ontario census records from 1851 to 1881 that Eleazar (Ebenezer, Elizar) King was married to a Mary, but found no trace of a previous wife or children.

Films received in the 7 days ending 23 August 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 20 September 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Leeds Co. Marriages 1923	1838208
CAN ON Toronto Marriages 1923	2266923
ENG KEN Boxley PR 1559-1876	1473727
ENG KEN Boxley PR 1678-1895	1473728
ENG Military Records A-E 1914-1920	2081342
ENG SOM Staple-Fitzpaine BTs 1599-1855	1470977
FRA Pais-Bas history	1181886
GRD Civ Reg Births 1905-1910	1523217
IDN Dutch Nationals fam archive Kl-Kis	1304067
IND Bombay CMBs 1864	0523923
ITL Petilia Policastro PR 1872-1910	2164073
JAM Marriages 1848-1871	1291746
JAM St. Andrew pr 1664-1870	1291698
NLD Amsterdam Marriages 1758-1783	0114685
NLD Amsterdam Marriages 1761-1769	0114668
POL Lodz Belchatow B 1851-61 D 1854-58	0681036
POL Lodz Belchatow D 1838-53 M 1844-64	0681035
POL Poznan Wladyslawow (Turek) 1776-1807	0764480
RUS BES Borodino familybook 1881-00	1768282
RUS St. Petersburg 1885	1897692
SCT Edinburgh Wills 1798	0231129
SVK Nova Lesna RC PRs 1762 - 1895	1791936
UKR L'viv Gk Cath Metr.Bks 1841	2270165
UKR L'viv Uhnow RC PR 1680-1945	2039909
UKR Zalszczyk RC PR 1763-1879	0757268
USA NY Manhattan - AD8 Census 1905	1432883
USA NY state census 1905 ad 16	1433091

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the Trenches

British Family History Books. Linda Reid tells us that GENfair - the on-line bookstore of the Federation of Family History Societies (UK) - is closing down. Many books are now less than half-price. For researchers of British family history there are bargains at: www.genfair.com/shop/pages/fed/index.html

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 33/2007

The drought of film arrivals ended this week with 40 films being received. Some Bulletins bounced back to us last week but not too many. Keep sending us questions for The Forum and snippets for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware...........sections. Next week's county for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Suffolk.

In this Bulletin

We draw your attention to a TV programme in which we were involved, in Announcements

Interesting acquisitions in Additions to our Permanent Collections

Two questions to set you thinking in The Forum

Australian Electoral Rolls and Saskatchewan homesteading are dealt with in Were you aware...............

Announcements

On the History Channel at 6.30 p.m. on Saturday 18 August, the Ancestors in the Attic programme is showing for the first time an episode that we were very much involved with and which we reported on briefly in a previous Bulletin. This involved a lady living here in Toronto who was adopted as a baby in Scotland. We were successful in locating birth relatives but there are many twists to the story and we are told that at one point the entire film crew were in tears. Enjoy!

Additions to our Permanent Collections

We are very pleased to announce, thanks to Paul Branson's donation, that we now have the Crimea War Medal Roll 1854-1855 and the Afghan War Medal Roll 1878-1880, both in CD form.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's county will be Suffolk. Your suggestions are invited.

Thanks to Kathy Hartley we have some more Shropshire sites:

http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/research.nsf
http://www.secretshropshire.org.uk/
http://www.sfhs.org.uk/
http://www.a2a.org.uk/) This is very useful for Shropshire research as many of the Shropshire record indexes have been
computerised.
This week we should be dealing with the Welsh counties but we have only one submission:

Anne Crawford writes: "I found this site while browsing for incidental information on Cardiff, and imagine my delight in finding a photo of my grandmother's parish congregation, c.1912, with her entire family there. Some of them I had never had a picture of before.http://www.tlysau.org.uk/en/index Welsh cultural history"

The Forum

New Questions

Q1/33/2007. Canada. Eleazar King (Roy? Roi? Leroy?) was born in Lower Canada ( Quebec) in 1811/12 and was a Roman Catholic. His descendants were listed as "French" on the census forms, so obviously his name must have been changed. He was married and lived for a time in the Niagara region (St Davids) before moving to Brantford. He died in 1905 and was buried in the "Catholic cemetery" in Brantford. No information is available there. I have tried the Drouin collection on ancestry.ca, but can't get anywhere. Have been unable to find out anything about his first wife's death in St Davids or her burial location, or indeed, anything about her father's ancestry. Would anyone have an idea as to how I might go about tracking down Eleazar and his ancestors?

Q2/33/2007. England/Canada. I am seeking advice regarding searching for my ancestors in Devon. My great-great grandfather, Robert Woodman settled in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland in or about 1812. He married a Priscilla but we have not located a marriage record that might have parental information. They had a first child in 1815, but the baptismal record contains no additional information. Based on Robert's grave stone he died in 1868 age 85 which puts his birth about 1783. Family folklore says he was from Devon and left England with two brothers, one of whom went on to settle in the Maritimes, perhaps PEI, and the other in the USA, perhaps near Boston. Based on the repeated family names, I would guess at their likely first names being either John, James, William or Edward. How can I discover some more details of these people and where in Devon (if in fact they came from Devon) they lived?

Films received in the 7 days ending 16 August 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 13 September 2007

Film Content	Film No
BRB Marr Index C-P 1849 - 1912	1159608
CAN NF deaths bks4-6 1902 - 1914	2168728
CAN ON Trafalgar Land Recs 1808-1958	0179050
CAN ON Trafalgar Land Recs 1808-1958	0179049
CAN ON York & Wentworth Marr 1923	2266942
CAN PQ Grenville PR 1883-1899	1992903
ENG GLS Clifton BTs 1786-1837	1595528
ENG GLS Tewkesbury PRs 1779 -1847	0856972
ENG MDX St George's chapel Mayfair pr	0845233
ENG OXF Bicester PRs 1539 - 1812	0887478
ENG SAL Ellesmere PCRs 1685-1726	1911406
ENG SAL Ellesmere PCRs 1726-1804	1911407
ENG SAL Ellesmere PCRs 1727-1755	1911405
ENG SAL Ellesmere PCRs 1728-1779	1911408
ENG SAL Ellesmere PCRs 1776-1777	1911409
ENG SAL Middle PCRs 1671-1920	1702903
ENG SAL Middle PCRs 1671-1920	1702879
ENG SOM Frome BT 1598-1826	1470972
ENG WW1 Burnt Records Jones, Thos.	2300813
ENG WW1 Unburnt Records - Keir	1879019
ENG YKS Doncaster BT 1711-1814	0919338
ENG YKS Horbury BT 1598-1812	0844552
ENG YKS Topcliffe BTs 1600 - 1820	0918435
ENG YKS Topcliffe BTs 1820 - 1856	0919050
ENG YKS Penistone PR 1600-1815	0919311
IND Madras BMB V.22-24 1844-1845	0521844
IND Madras PR tscpts BMB 1784-1808	0506955
IRL LDY Templemore 1911 census	1840295
IRL WIC Delgany 1901 census	1592897
JAM Misc. Parish Reg. BMD 1860-	1291710
NLD C.C. van Valkenburg Genealogy	1393243
NLD Amsterdam Marr Indx 1578-1650	0536925
NZL NI Electoral Rolls H-N 1905 - 1906	0420066
POL Stendsitz RC PR Marr Dths 1847-	0544865
SVK Velka Lomnica PR 1784-1944	1791934
SVK Vrbov PR 1783-1860	1791920
SVK Vrbov PR 1867-1925	1791921
USA MA Boston Arrivals Jan/May 1902	1724623
USA MA Boston Arrivals May/Aug 1902	1724624
USA NY Inbound Passengers 1820-46 'H'	0350242

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

Were you aware..................

Australia . The Electoral Rolls for New South Wales 1903, Western Australia 1901 and Tasmania 1903, which are the nearest you can get to census information for Australia, are now available on a CD published by the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies. Unfortunately the cost is $150 and so unless some fairy godparent steps up there is very little chance of this appearing in the Toronto Family History Centre.

Canada , Saskatchewan. Gwen Armstrong draws our attention to a site http://sasksettlement.com/ Saskatchewan Settlement Experience. She writes " I particularly liked it for the explanation it gave of homesteading. How you got one, what kind of forms were filled out. What it cost. Found some interesting old photos of churches some with a brief history. Very easy to navigate and the search engine is excellent".

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 32/2007

Several readers have reported that they did not receive last week's Bulletin although we did not get a bounce back - and these readers report that this is the first time that this has happened. We know not why. Our Bulletins are numbered sequentially so if you are missing one let us know and we will send out a copy to you.

The snail mail dearth continues. Not a single film has been received this week, the second week that this has occurred. It seems that a one day holiday disrupts the mail for a long time.

Meanwhile we have to report that we have not received any questions this week for The Forum neither have we got any of those priceless nuggets for News from the trenches. Your contributions are invited.

And just to compound the misery the Favourite UK County Sites section which this week was to cover the whole of Wales, received less than stellar support, only one comment having being received. We know that quite a few readers have Wales interests so we will leave this open for another week but we seem to have exhausted the major counties and we now pass this over to our readers to tell us which counties they would like to see featured.

In this Bulletin

As there were three questions in last week's Forum all relating to passenger lists we are dealing with this in some detail, James Thomson having gone above and beyond to solve these reader's problems. We are putting this in The Forum section although it could equally well have fitted in the Were you aware.......... section. We would urge all our readers with UK/Canadian ancestry to study this section.

We draw your attention to another site for those of you with British India connections in the Were you aware........... section.

Favourite UK County Sites

This week's counties were to have been the 13 counties of Wales. As noted above we are holding this over for another week.

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/31/2007. England/Canada. George Prosser came to Canada from England in 1903 with his wife Sarah and children, George Henry, Rowland, Harold, Herbert, Claud and Lily. They homesteaded in Saskatchewan. What ship did they come on and what route did they take to get to Saskatchewan?

James Thomson writes: “As things stand at the moment, the easiest place to start is with the indexes to, and digital images of, the passenger manifests prepared at the point of departure in the British Isles; these are available at http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/, which has been described in various past issues of the Bulletin. The enquirer will be able fairly readily, by use of the free index, to determine that the Prossers came in two or more groups in 1903, some coming to Montreal ( Quebec) and some to Halifax. If the enquirer then went further and paid to access transcriptions of the records, the names of the vessels and the departure dates from the British Isles would be readily forthcoming. Having done that, the enquirer could turn to a database of 1865-1922 passenger manifests prepared at the point of arrival of Canada; this is on the website of Library and Archives Canada (LAC), and the search screen is located at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/passenger/001045-100.01-e.php . For each voyage of interest, the enquirer should enter the ship's name and the year and port of arrival, and then choose, among the search results, the entry for the voyage which terminated in Canada a week or two after the voyage commenced in the UK. Each page of the manifest could be examined in turn, until the entries for the Prossers are found. In 1903, one would expect each passenger's intended destination to be given, but there may well not be a column – as there would be in later years – giving the name of the railroad on which the journey was to be continued. There may, however, be a general annotation on the first page of such manifest providing a reference to trains to which passengers transferred. It is reasonable to anticipate that the Prossers made their way west by rail.

I began this response with the qualifier “as things stand at the moment”. The LAC and Ancestry.ca have announced a partnership to extend the range of online digitized Canadian passenger lists; to digitize ancillary records such as US to Canada border crossing records and the 1919-1924 Form 30 and Form 30A immigration records (below); and to provide nominal indexes to the whole lot! At that point, research in Canadian passenger lists will be transformed.”

Q2/31/2007. England/Canada. Albert King came to Canada on the 'Scotian' in June 1913. Where precisely did he go to live in Canada? He had returned to England by August 1915. Are there records of people returning to the UK?

James Thomson writes: “Splendidly, the enquirer has already identified the ship and voyage on which Albert King made the trip to Canada. The information which the enquirer seeks about destination within Canada is most easily sought in the passenger manifest for the same voyage prepared at the point of arrival in Canada. The good news is that a digital image of this manifest is now online; at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/passenger/001045-100.01-e.php , enter Scotian as the Name of Ship and 1913 as the Year of Arrival. In the list of results which are returned, click on “SCOTIAN” next to the arrival date of June 16, 1913 (this must be the voyage of interest, as the enquirer knows that Albert was a passenger on a voyage which commenced on June 5, 1913). At this point, in theory, one could step through the images of the pages of the manifest until Albert is located, and then inspect the column for his intended destination. Now for the very bad news. Much of the passenger information, at least on the digital version, is virtually completely illegible. The enquirer could try the equivalent microfilm at NYCL (T-4798), but the image there is not much better (and perhaps no better). I'm afraid that one may have to make some guesses here. For instance, there are several passengers at the foot of page 13 who may have the surname King. In each case, the ages and occupations are legible; there are, among others, a 17 year old gardener, a 45 year old carter, and a 24 year old fitter. Do any of these sound like good candidates for Albert? If not, are any of the other legible combinations of ages and occupations, anywhere in the manifest, a good fit? If one can identify a likely entry, then one may be in luck; in almost all cases in this manifest the column in which the intended destination is given is legible as well.

The enquirer's second question relates to eastbound transatlantic passenger manifests, from North America to the British Isles. Just as there is a record series containing westbound passenger lists prepared at the point of embarkation in the United Kingdom (series BT 27 at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, London, entitled Board of Trade Passenger Lists Outwards, 1890-1960 – the series being indexed and digitized at http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/ ), so there is a record series containing eastbound passenger lists prepared at the point of arrival in the United Kingdom: the Board of Trade Passenger Lists Inwards, 1878-1960, which are held at TNA as series BT 26. As part of its 2005-2011 digitization program, the aim of which is to place digital copies of all of TNA's most popular series online by 2011, TNA has indicated that it hopes to launch a project to digitize and index the (eastbound) BT 26 lists some time this year, with a completion date of 2009. The intent is to attract a partner in the undertaking, as has happened with the BT 27 Passenger Lists Outwards, and indeed a licence respecting the BT 26 series (and related series) is now being negotiated.”

Q3/31/2007. England/Canada. Joseph Ernest Gloster came to Canada in the spring of 1920 on the 'Melita' from Liverpool to Saint John N.B. possibly travelling with a Rose Ann Stacey. I believe they were making their way to Watrous, Saskatchewan. How can I verify this?

James Thomson writes: “The LAC database of 1865-1922 passenger lists referred to above does not at this point include arrivals at Saint John in 1920, though in due course indexes to and images of such manifests will be available online (as described above). For the time being, such manifests can be consulted on microfilm at NYCL, but there is another class of records which in this case makes a better starting point. Starting between 1919 and 1922, and lasting until 1924, passengers arriving in Canada can be sought in the immigration Form 30A (Ocean Arrivals) records, as described at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/genealogy/022-908.004-e.html .

The Form 30A records also will in due course be indexed and digitized and available online, but for the time being they can be consulted on microfilm at the NYCL. The records are in quasi-alphabetical order and I am pleased to report that the enquirer will find a record for Joseph Ernest Gloster on film T-15040 (in a section of surnames beginning with Glo...) and will find a record for Rose Ann Stacey on film T-15201 (in a section devoted to the surname Stacey). Both records are highly informative, and I hope will be of the greatest interest to the enquirer, who shouldn't overlook the fact that in each case the image of the “Passenger's Declaration” is preceded on the film by a “Description of Passenger” which forms part of the same record. The enquirer may be able to make a good assessment of whether Joseph Edward (a widower) and Rose Ann (single) were travelling together by comparing their ticket numbers and dates of purchase of such tickets etc..

While at the NYCL, the enquirer can take the matter even further. The Form 30A records make it clear that both Joseph Ernest Gloster and Rose Ann Stacey were passengers on a voyage of the Melita which commenced at Liverpool on March 19, 1920, and arrived at Saint John on March 28, 1920. The passenger manifest for this voyage is available and is split between two films at the NYCL: the first part is the last item on film T-14839 and the second part is the first item on Film T-14840. Joseph Ernest and Rose Ann both are recorded in the second part; he is on a page 32 (as numbered by hand in the top right corner), and she appears a few pages later; the information in each case supplements what is in the Form 30A records. Don't pass over the manifest as a whole too quickly; the first page (of the first part, at the end of film T-14839) provides useful information about the ship and the voyage, and a careful inspection of the entire manifest may disclose other passengers who were heading to Watrous (which you may find mistranscribed in the manifest as Watrons). Happy hunting!”

Q4/31/2007. Widow Bicknell in receipt of parish relief for many years in Binstead, Hampshire but no sign of baptisms or burials of Bicknell's in Binstead. Since to obtain parish relief she would have to have settlement there why is this and are there suggestions as to where her family might be. Widow Bicknell might have had settlement in Binstead by being born there and unless you know her maiden name you would be unable to find her baptism. We note that you have searched baptisms and burials but we think it important that you now search the Binstead marriages which, for the years 1754-1837 are on Film No. 1041228. This might reveal somebody marrying a Bicknell which could help you find the baptism. There is a further possibility that Widow Bicknell remarried and this is the reason you are unable to find her burial - or she died outside the parish and was not buried in Binstead.

Films received in the 7 days ending 9 August 2007

No films have been received this week.

Were you aware..............

British India . Sheila Smith writes:- " I wanted to pass along a new site that is very useful to people researching their family in British India. It's at http://indiafamily.bl.uk/UI/ and it is a searchable database of the British Library's India Office card index. The records include Ecclesiastical returns of births, marriages and deaths, army records and biographical info. It can be searched by name, keyword and presidency, and includes records from the earliest days of the East India Company, to the 1940's."

I had a look at this website and find that it has 300,000 births, marriages, deaths and burials of British and European people in India between 1600 and 1949. The site points out that this represents about 10% of the British Library India Office holdings. Searching for Goddards I got 160 hits - 28 births, 30 baptisms, 43 marriages, 4 deaths, 45 burials and 10 biographical notes but there was some double counting here as a marriage, for example would appear twice - once under the groom's name and once under the bride's. A very useful site indeed and a useful adjunct to the excellent collection of films on British India we have here in the Toronto Family History Centre.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 31/2007

Many thanks to those people who responded to my request for questions for The Forum as illustrated below. A constant supply would be nice.

The problems we were having with the email distribution of the Bulletin seem to have been overcome. We did not have any bounce back to us last week and have had no reports of non-delivery.

Mind you we are not having such a good time with the snail-mail. Not a single film was received this week.

Next week's counties for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be the 13 counties comprising the principality of Wales.

In this Bulletin

Some posers in The Forum for our readers to work on on holiday Monday, when according to tonight's forecast we can expect a lot of rain.

More on convicts, crime and punishment and World War 1 "Unburnt" army records in Were you aware............

Announcements

The Toronto Family History Centre will be closed for the Civic Holiday on Saturday 4th August and on Monday 6th August.

The Ontario Genealogical Society Toronto Branch tell us that there is still space available for the Dutch Family History Workshop at the North York Central Library on Saturday, August 11 th. Information about the workshop, full details about the day’s program and registration form can be found at http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

England, Leicestershire , Marriages for the following parishes:

Humberstone 1559-1837, Quorndon 1576-1837,Swithland 1624-1837.

Walton-on-the-Wolds 1568-1837, Wanlip 1563-1837, Woodhouse 1623-1837 (All on CD No. FTM33).

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's counties are the 13 counties that comprised the principality of Wales.

This week's counties are Hampshire and Dorset. We have had no submissions for Hampshire. For Dorset, Frances Radford suggests:

http://www.weymouth-dorset.co.uk/ - information on Weymouth, Old Weymouth, Melcombe Regis, History Timelines, the Borough, Local Villages and other related subjects.

The Forum

New Questions. We have three similar questions this week and we believe that we could provide immediate answers to all of them. However, we would like our readers to send in their ideas and next week we will publish answers which may be of help to those who have not had experience in this area of research.

Q1/31/2007. England/Canada. My grandfather George Prosser came to Canada from England in 1903 with his wife Sarah and their children George Henry, Rowland, Harold, Herbert, Claud and Lily. They homesteaded in Saskatchewan. I would like to know what ship they came on and what route they took to Saskatchewan.

Q2/31/2007. England/Canada. Albert King left England to come to Canada on the 'Scotian' from London on 5 June 1913. Is there any way of finding out exactly where he went to live in Canada? By August 1915 he was back in London. Are there shipping records for people who returned to the U.K.?

Q3/31/2007. England/Canada. I think my grandfather Joseph Ernest Gloster came to Canada from England on the 'Melita' from Liverpool to Saint John N.B. in the spring of 1920. His travelling companion may have been Rose Ann Stacey/Stacy. I believe they were making their way to Watrous, Saskatchewan. How can I verify this?

and a question of a different stripe -

Q4/31/2007. England. In researching the parish of Binstead in Hampshire, I have found a Widow Bicknell in receipt of parish relief from December 1807 to November 1825 (a total of 18 years), and another (or the same?) Widow Bicknell from January 1787 to December 1791 (5 years). However I have been unable to find any record of Bicknell (or any name close) in the parish records of baptisms (1785-1839) or burials (1809-1860). Given that relief was in the parish of settlement I find this unusual. Does anyone have any ideas as to where her family might be?

Films received in the 7 days ending 2 August 2007.

No films have been received in the past 7 days.

News from the trenches

Following up on the piece in last week's Bulletin on Australian convict records, Chris Roberts writes:

"Some time ago, an Australian born friend recommended a book by Robert Hughes called "The Fatal Shore" . It was a riveting, well-researched account of the various aspects of transportation from a human and political/historical perspective. Very readable and more powerful than any novel!
Another good book is called "Bury the Chains" by Adam Horthschild about the abolition movement in Britain to end slavery. Very readable and informative".

Were you aware..................

Canada . Kathy Hartley spotted an article in the National Post concerning Canada's war graves. www.mapleleaflegacy.com is aiming to provide on-line a photograph of every Canadian war grave. Checking this out I find that it is based on the information carried on the Commonwealth War Graves site www.cwgc.org and could be considered as an alternative in searching for Canadian war deaths. They seem to have some way to go before they have a good representation of the actual graves.

England . Crime and Punishment.

In last week's Bulletin we reported that from 1788 to 1868 165,000 people were transported to Australia from England having been convicted of what in many cases was a minor offence. I have now discovered that that figure represented about one-third of all convictions during that period.

By the early 1800's there were over 200 offences for which the penalty was death by hanging and there is no doubt that transportation was seen as a humane alternative for the lesser offences. Many of the offences for which death was the prescribed penalty were very similar. Stealing from a shop, a house, a warehouse or a brothel were all separate offences but the main groups were:

Murder

Attempted Murder

Arson

Rape

Sodomy

Forgery

Uttering (passing counterfeit money)

Coining

Robbery

Highway Robbery (street robbery, now called mugging)

Housebreaking

Robbery in a dwelling house

Returning from transportation

Cutting and maiming (now called grievous bodily harm)

Horse Stealing

Cattle Stealing

Sheep Stealing.

By 1861, the offences that demanded the death penalty upon conviction had been reduced to just four - high treason, murder, piracy and arson in a Royal dockyard.

Between 1800 and 1899 3,351 men and 167 women were hanged in England and Wales (roughly 35 per year), Between 1900 and 1964 when the lasting hanging took place, 748 men and 15 women were hanged (roughly 12 per year). These figures exclude 18 American servicemen who were executed in England in WW2, 12 for murder and 6 for rape.

In 1965 the homicide rate for England & Wales was 6.8 per million population. By 1997 this had more than doubled to 14.1 per million population.

England/Australia transportation.

In last week's Bulletin I pointed out, somewhat tongue in cheek, that among the convicts listed as being transported to Australia were two with the surname Billing. (Helen Billing is a very valuable member of the Toronto Family History staff). Helen now writes:-"Last week you touched a nerve with your article on transported criminals, citing Billing examples. As my husband, Alan, exclaimed, it was not his ancestors who were transported but rather my 4g grandfather. Aaron Chevell was one of 76 people charged in 1816 with rioting and stealing, after riots in Littleport and Ely ostensibly against the high price of grain. Of these 5 were hung; seven were transported to Australia and another dozen spent a year in Ely "goal". Aaron had stolen a total of nine pounds. The 7 transportees were jailed in Ely Jail, sent to a convict hulk on the Thames and transported by ship first to Sydney and then to Hobart, Tasmania. By 1819 the governor recommended that the families of four of these men be sent to Hobart as the men were well able to support their families. But no action was forthcoming from Cambridge and my 4g-grandfather lived for 40 more years in Hobart, while his wife and four children stayed in Littleport. Thanks to the information on Ancestry I now know that he was pardoned by 1841.

Australians are very keen on finding convicts as ancestors and there is a lot on the internet to help track them down. If you have a convict ancestor, you can "claim" him or her in order to get in touch with other descendants at http://users.bigpond.net.au/convicts/. If you wish to know more about convict jargon "tickets of leave", etc, try http://users.bigpond.net.au/convicts/page100.html. The "Dead Persons Societies" in Australia have good links for finding Australian relatives, for example: Melbourne - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~dpsoc/ or Perth - http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/default.html. Existing Australian censuses (1841,1891 & 1901) do not detail the names and ages of each person but seem to just give the head of household and the distribution of males and females by age in the household. So it is rather frustrating trying to find my lowly ancestor who was probably never the head of a household. The Australian information on Ancestry will be a huge help to many people. Thanks to the Editor for highlighting it last week".

And thank you Helen for the interesting story and for the additional information.

First World War British Army Records.

James Thomson writes: "I contributed to Bulletin 08/2007 of February 22, 2007, a note about the launch on Ancestry of indexes to, and digital images of, the First World War WO 364 British Army soldiers' papers (known as the "unburnt documents"), for soldiers whose surnames began with the letters "A" or "B". I'm delighted to see that Ancestry has now completed their WO 364 project by adding indexes to and digital images of such papers for soldiers whose surnames began with the letters "C" through "Z". For more information, see http://content.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/default.aspx?htx=List&dbid=1114 ; this database is freely available to Toronto Public Library (TPL) cardholders at all TPL branches (as part of AncestryLibraryEdition), as well as to Ancestry subscribers with access to the UK & Ireland Collections. (Editor's Note: such access is available through the Family History Centre.) For more detailed information about the WO 364 record series, and the complementary WO 363 ("burnt documents") series, see the Research Guide prepared by The National Archives at

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=18

A few brief notes:

1. If one finds an index entry of interest, the digital image to which one is taken when one clicks on “View image” should be the front of the first form in the set of records for that soldier; to see the next image, click on the “Next” icon (a right-pointing arrow) immediately above the displayed image. To see the entire set of images for the soldier, continue doing this; the end of the set of papers relating to that soldier should be indicated by an image of a card reading “Next File”. Don't be surprised if the soldier's papers contain what appear to be duplicate copies of the same form; there may be some subtle differences between them.

Note: I emphasize the words "should be" because both Margaret Taylor and I have noted that it sometimes has been the case (at least with the first tranche of such records, namely those for soldiers whose surnames began with "A" or "B") that (a) the image to which one was taken when one clicked on "View image" was not in fact the first record in the set of records for a particular soldier (meaning that it may also be worth clicking on the "Prev" icon (a left-pointing arrow) immediately above the displayed image of what is ostensibly the first such record for such soldier, just to be sure that there are no records relevant to the soldier before that image); and/or that (b) the "Next File" card was sometimes missing, meaning that one might inadvertently find oneself at some point straying into the series of records for the next soldier in the sequence.

Note that both WO 364 and the larger series WO 363 (the "burnt documents") contain the papers of non-commissioned officers and "other ranks" only; the records of commissioned officers are not included.

2. The estimates of the number of soldiers (NCOs and "other ranks") in the British Army in the First World War range up to 7 million (or more), and there are said to be records for about 750,000 of these in WO 364 and records for about 2 million in WO 363; in consequence, it is generally said that there are extant soldiers' papers for about 40% of those who served (papers for the other 60% having been destroyed by fire as a result of bombing in the Second World War).

As I noted on the earlier occasion, Ancestry also intends to index and digitally image the two million sets of records in the WO 363 ("burnt documents") series, and to complete that task by the end of 2008: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/150.htm?homepage=news It has been estimated that, when complete, there may be a total of about fourteen million digital images in the WO 363 and WO 364 databases!

3. Not included in either WO 363 or WO 364 are the records of soldiers who remained in the British Army after 1920 (or who re-enlisted prior to the Second World War); such records are with the Ministry of Defence.

It is worth noting also that records of those who served in (or, to be more precise, whose service ended with) the Household Cavalry are not in WO 363 or WO 364, but rather are in TNA series WO 400. Further, the records of those who served with the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, or Scots, Irish or Welsh Guards remain with the regimental headquarters of the Foot Guards regiments and hence do not comprise any series at the TNA. This is important for me, for instance, as the Coldstream Guards are one of the regiments in which my family members served. The records of the Household Cavalry should all be available, while the records of the Foot Guards did suffer some losses in the Second World War.

For such First World War service records of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps as survive (only about 7,000 out of the original 57,000), see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/waac.asp, and for First World War service records of men as well as officers of the Royal Naval Division (not the Royal Navy), see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/royalnavaldivision.asp ."

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 30/2007

A reminder that we require a constant supply of questions for The Forum and interesting stories and comments for News from the trenches. Next week's counties for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Hampshire and Dorset.

In this Bulletin

An unusual entry under Announcements whereby we give our readers the opportunity of acquiring a car at a bargain price.

We draw your attention to convict records in Were you aware..............

Announcements

Our Mission Office has a number of used vehicles to dispose of at bargain prices. They have five 4-door automatic Chevrolet Cavaliers - two 2003 models and three 2004 models all with Air Conditioning and AM/FM radios. They have around 80,000km on their clocks and all are priced at $7,500. There is also a 2005 model Chevrolet Uplander SUV with approx. 90,000km clocked, priced at $14,950. All these vehicles have been well maintained, have full service histories and will come with certificates of roadworthiness. First come, first served. Contact Elder Nicol at the Mission Office on 416 490 6869.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's counties will be Hampshire and Dorset. Your submissions are invited.

This week's counties are Kent and Surrey. Nobody has submitted sites for Surrey but several of our readers have made suggestions for Kent. We have eliminated duplications and combined comments and descriptions.

http://kentarchaeology.org.uk/ - Kent Archaeological Society - the oldest and largest society devoted to the history and archaeology of the ancient county of Kent. This site has a fine Research section which includes: Maps, place names, MI's and photographs, as well as Tithe Award Schedules and Wills. Not just archaeology!

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mrawson/ - an excellent resource for genealogy in the County of Kent, England.It includes many indexes and transcripts containing over 80,000 names and over 350 links to other useful sites.

http://cityark.medway.gov.uk/ - the web presence of the Medway Council Archives Service which is based at the Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre, Civic Centre, Strood, Kent, England. They preserve and make available for research the archives of the Medway area of Kent and also the parish records of north-west Kent. The oldest records date from 604

www.kfhs.org.uk/ Kent Family History Society

http:// freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~penney/ Sheerness and Isle of Sheppey census, PR and other interesting information

www.rootsweb.com/~engken/bmd.html Listing of transcribed Kent births, marriages and deaths

http://extranet3.kent.gov.uk/sp/rois/home.html Online indexes of Kent BMDs from 1837-2002

The Forum

New Question

Q1/30/2007. Canada. On the ships manifest for my maternal grandfather coming to Canada in 1927, it has as his final destination "L.I.B. Winnipeg". Does anyone know what this means?

Films received in the 7 days ending 26 July 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 23 August 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN ONT Bruce Co Marriages 1925	2412461
CAN ONT Leeds & Grenville Co Mar 1925	2413313
CAN ONT Waterloo Co Marriages 1925	2413331
CAN PQ Land petitions	1630572
ENG LAN L'pool St Nicholas PRs M 1808-21	0093840
ENG LAN L'pool St Peters PRs C 1815-1820	0093874
ENG WIL Trowbridge Marr 1822-1971	1279314
GER Urloffen Baden pr	0949966
IRL DOW Dromore 1911 Census	2092684
IRL DOW Dromore 1911 Census	2092683
JAM Kingston pr 1722-1871	1291761
JAM Ver pr 1707-1869	1291677
POL Stendsitz RC PR Bapt 1835-1890	0544864
USA MI Dec of Intention Indx 1859-1941	1320185
USA MI Naturalization Indx 1894-1931	1787479
USA NY Manhattan - AD12 Census 1905	1433088

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

England , Abney Park Cemetery. In last week's Favourite UK Counties section we referred to the records of Abney Park Cemetery which is in the Stoke Newington/Stamford Hill area of north London. Helen Billing writes:-

" Visiting Abney Park to search for our ancestors for whom we had burial cards was a bit of a shock. It is now Abney Park Nature Reserve and Conservation Area. Our hunt for the tombstones of our ancestors was futile as most of the stones are covered with ivy, fallen over, under broken trees, and completely illegible. We had obtained the burial numbers, like I-7456, from our burial cards and the Abney Park Cemetery website but these were not useful as all the "I's" were not together. However it was very beautiful and a great place to wander on a sunny afternoon.

The cemetery was established in 1840 as a garden cemetery, a semi-public arboretum and an educational institute. It is large - 32 acres. The trees planted for the arboretum have matured and even fallen over. This is now a lovely green area with much wildlife, including lots of birds and butterflies (especially considering the surrounding parts of London).

A few stones are legible and well kept - the founders of the Salvation Army, William & Catherine Booth, and other Salvation Army Commissioners have large memorial stones. No interments have taken place since 1980, except when the family has previously held a plot there".

England/Australia. Your editor writes: In the course of my research into the Australian convict records, I came across a Charles Billing who was sentenced in 1823 at the Old Bailey to 7 years transportation for stealing some lead and a Joseph Billing who was sentenced on 5 March 1823 at the Bedford Assize to transportation for life. I don't know what his crime was. Joseph sailed for Australia on 29 July 1823 on the " Asia" arriving early in 1824. Twenty years later,on 1 May 1844 he was recommended for an Absolute Pardon "having held a conditional pardon beyond the usual time and his conduct being favourably reported". He had held a conditional pardon for 6 years. There were 42 Goddards listed in the Australian convict records.

Were you aware.................

England/Australia. From 1788 to 1868 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia mainly from England but a few were picked up in the West Indies by the convict ships on their way to Australia. The voyage from England to Australia usually took between 4 and 6 months depending on how many stops were made on the way for stores and repairs. Recently added to the Ancestry.com website (available free of charge at the Toronto Family History Centre and in Toronto Public Libraries) is a searchable database of these convicts showing their names, where and when they were convicted (but does not indicate the crime), the length of their sentence and the name of the ship on which they were transported together with the sailing date. The date of the arrival in Australia is not shown.

Besides the Convict Transportation Registers this area of the Ancestry.com site contains other databases - Convict Musters 1806-1849 (these are like a census to discover who was living in the colony) which, in some cases, shows the year of birth, Convict Pardons 1834-1859 and the Convict Lists 1787-1834. A Conditional Pardon allowed a convict to work for someone outside the prison system or even to set up a business (but not to leave the country) whereas if a convict was granted an Absolute Pardon he (or she) was free to return to England. Some saved enough money after they were granted a Conditional Pardon to enable them to pay their fare back whilst others worked their passage. (An indication of the material that can be gleaned from these records is shown in News from the trenches (above).

England . Benefit of Clergy and the Neck Verse

Benefit of Clergy was the privilege originally extended to clergy so that they might avoid the severity of English criminal law when hanging was the standard penalty for numerous offences. Later, the right to claim Benefit of Clergy was broadened so that anyone who could read was entitled to claim it. The loophole (noose-hole?) became wider since the standard test applied by the Courts was the ability to read verse 1 of Psalm 51.

Have mercy upon me, O God

According to thy loving kindness

According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies

Blot out my transgressions

Of course it didn't take long before the illiterate among the criminal classes learned this verse by heart and thus it became known as The Neck Verse.

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Toronto Family History Bulletin 29/2007

It seems we are not alone in having problems getting bulk email delivered. Dick Eastman, who sends out a daily on-line genealogy newsletter and uses a bulk-mail service to do it, apparently has the same problems with a significant percentage of subscribers not receiving his messages. He says that this is common to all bulk email and there is no way around it.

Next week's counties for the UK Favourite County Sites section will be Surrey and Kent. Your submissions are invited. And we could do with some questions for The Forum and interesting stories for News from the trenches.

In this Bulletin

News from the trenches reveals the difficult birth of the London County Council

In the Were you aware.......... section, James Thomson provides us with further details concerning the Crimean and Second Afghan War medal rolls.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's counties will be Surrey and Kent.

Middlesex was a county we covered in Bulletin 26/2007 but we now have a further submission. Maurice Hardman tell us that http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~abneypark/abneyy.html has a searchable database of burials at the Abney Park Cemetery which is in the Hackney area.

This week's counties are Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire. We have not received any submissions for Worcestershire but Sheila Smith sent us the following for Herefordshire:`

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ukhfhs/ The Herefordshire Family History Society.
http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/fines/herefordshire.shtml Herefordshire Feet of Fines:(abstracts from 1359 -1509)
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/ProbateRecords/ The Wills of Herefordshire;
http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/ Historic Herefordshire Online:(includes a searchable database of land owners)
and Vida Preece offered some more:

http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/herefordshire/index.html Herefordshire Genealogy Links, provides links to lots of other useful Herefordshire sites

http://www.genealogy-of-uk.com/England/Herefordshire/genealogy.htm Herefordshire Genealogy site

Here's one for Shropshire:

http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/shropshire/index.html Shropshire Genealogy Links, provides lots of links to useful Shropshire sites

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/28/2007. Genealogy generally. Where can I buy a pair of gloves suitable for handling valuable archival material? We received numerous replies to this question - for which many thanks. Our readers think that cotton gloves purchased from Shopper's Drug are as good as any but you could also buy them on-line from Global Genealogy on http://www.globalgenealogy.com/

Q2/28/2007. Canada. What does "British Bonus Allowed" mean on a Passenger List for a ship arriving in Canada ? Jeannette Colgan writes to tell us that the answer to this question can be found on http://www.collectionscanada.ca/genealogy/022-908.001-e.html and is defined " A commission paid by the Canadian government's Immigration Branch to steamship booking agents in the United Kingdom for each suitable immigrant who purchased a ticket to sail to Canada. The immigrants themselves did not receive a bonus."

Q3/28/2007. England WW1. No one seems to have seen the campaign medals of a relative who died in WW1, to which I know he was entitled. Is there a source where I can obtain the medals or even miniatures? Beryl Peros went to a lot of trouble to respond to this one having already obtained, in 2001, a WW2 medal to which her father was entitled from the Army Medal Office in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire. She discovered that the medal office is now the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence in Gloucester but having phoned them was told that they are no longer issuing WW1 medals and the only source would be from a medal dealer. And Mary Parry writes: "My mother used Toad Hall Medals in Devon to get her father's medals from WWI. You will need your relative's regimental number and full name. They are now incorporated into Bigbury Medals see http://www.toadhallmedals.com/#605X0 "

Films received in the 7 days ending 19 July 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 16 August 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN PQ Grenville church records	1430826
CAN PQ Grenville St. Matthew's cemetery	1711400
CAN PQ Grenville St. Matthew's pr	1992751
CAN PQ Montreal St George BMB 1843-	1430788
ENG HUN Great Paxton pr 1583-1876	1040745
ENG NBL Newcastle St John's PR 1825-	0847920
ENG SAL Ellesmere Wills & Adm 1636-1858	0095264
ENG SAL Ellesmere Wills & Adm 1636-1858	0095257
ENG SOM Corfe PRs 1566 - 1936	1526553
IND Madras BMB V.17-19 1834-1840	0521842
IND Madras BMB V.2-3 1784-1808	0463296
IND Madras BMB V.7-8 1818-1823	0521837
ITL Brindisi F'villa Fontana CivR 1809-	1329884
SCT PER Perth OPR Marr 1784-1799	1040158
SCT KKD Kells PRs	1067975

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches.

England . London. Formation of the London County Council and a rogue Goddard

The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was created in 1855 responsible for developing the infrastructure of a rapidly expanding London and was for a number of years the only London-wide adminstrative body. Eventually a series of scandals brought about its demise and the creation of the London County Council comprising 28 metropolitan boroughs. In 1879 the MBW purchased the Old Pavilion Music Hall in Piccadilly Circus apparently needed for the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. As the road plans were in an early stage the site was leased to an R.E. Villiers but in addition to his lease payments he was making regular payments to the Chief Valuer of the MBW, a certain Frederick William Goddard. In 1883 a more permanent lease was signed with Villiers for £3,000 per annum despite there being an offer of £4,000 per annum from another party. In 1886 Villiers sold the Pavilion and Goddard received £5,000 of the proceeds. The MBW became known as the "Metropolitan Board of Perks". In 1888 Parliament established a Royal Commission to look into the MBW and recommended its abolition and the formation of the London County Council. Meanwhile the MBW continued on its corrupt way and despite being asked not to take any important decisions refused to take notice and announced that they were about to award contracts for the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel. Faced with this Parliament took immediate action, abolished the MBW and the London County Council came into being on 21 March 1889.

Were you aware.................

England - Crimean War Medals 1854-1855 and Afghan War Medals 1878-1880.

In last week's Bulletin we responded to a question from Paul Branson asking whether it was possible to bring in CDs from Salt Lake. We advised that this was not possible but that these particular CDs were available for purchase from a supplier in the UK.

Paul tells us that he has ordered the CDs and that when he is finished with them he will be donating them to the Family History Centre. This is marvelous news and we are most grateful. On this same topic James Thomson writes:

"The news that Mr. Branson will consider donating the CDs containing digital images of the medal rolls for the Crimean War and for the Second Afghan War is splendid; these would be most welcome additions to the resources available for British Army research in Toronto. Here are some thoughts relating to these items:

The Baltic Medal Roll, 1854-1855 CD from the same vendor would complement the Crimea War Medal Roll CD wonderfully, should the FHC be considering acquiring it.

Using the CDs containing digital images of these medal rolls may require some patience on the part of the researcher: they do not include nominal indexes; they are browseable rather than text-searchable; and some pages of the manuscript lists of recipients may be easier to read than others.

As regards nominal indexes, Brian Oldham had been constructing the Great Crimean War Index, a searchable database of participants; I hope to provide information about its status next week (the relevant site, www.crimeanwar.info, is not currently operational). For the Second Afghan War, The Afghan War Database Project at www.angloafghanwar.info may be of interest; it so far includes 770 entries.

Published casualty rolls for both wars are at the Toronto Reference Library (TRL): see Casualty Roll for the Crimea (TRL Stacks: 947.07 C585) and Second Afghan War 1878-1880 Casualty Roll (TRL Stacks: 958.103 F13).

For a review of the range of medals awarded with respect to the Crimean War, see the website of the Crimean War Research Society at www.crimeanwar.org and in particular the “Crimean War FAQ”. Published books (and Army Lists) referred to there can be sought at the TRL; for issues of the London Gazette see www.gazettes-online.co.uk .

The University of Toronto now subscribes to a text-searchable database of the (British) House of Commons Parliamentary Papers; the Papers include reports (in 1860 and 1871) from the Royal Patriotic Fund providing information about assistance provided to widows and orphans of Crimean War participants (and about petitions for assistance which had been rejected). Other Parliamentary Papers include, for example, lists of officers and men who received medals for Crimean War service from the King of Sardinia.

For recipients of the Afghan War Medal who served in Indian regiments, rather than in the British Army, it may be necessary to consult medal rolls in the records of the India Office, at the British Library.The relevant India Office Military Department series are L/MIL/5/117 to L/MIL/5/124. "

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 28/2007

The email gods smiled on us last week. The Bulletin did not bounce back from any of the over 400 addresses we send it to. What we don't know is whether all those people received it. Would anybody who did not receive it let us know.

We have had no responses to our call for websites for the counties of Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire for the UK Favourite County Sites section so we are keeping this open for another week. Surely there is somebody researching these counties.

In this Bulletin

A very lengthy response to a Forum question but we thought it well worthwhile copying as it is likely to help all Alberta researchers.

And interesting stuff in the Were you aware......... section on Medal Rolls and Passenger Lists

Announcements

Richard Holzapfel, Ph.D., Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University is giving a talk Why the Book of Mormon is the Word of God - Internal Evidences of Its Antiquity at the Church, here at Don Mills and Eglinton, on Saturday, July 14 at 7.00. Non church members are welcome.

Favourite UK County Sites

As we received no submissions for the counties of Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire we are letting this run for another week. Hopefully we will have something to report for next week.

The Forum

Answer to Previous Question

Q1/27/2007. Canada. Obituary of May 1918 mentioned a son, Henry Lorne Carter as living in Champion, Alberta. How do I find out what happened to him?

To help us answer this question we enlisted the support of Alberta's Ask a Question service provided by libraries in Alberta and were delighted to receive within 48 hours, the following response:

" Please note that Champion is part of a rural area in Alberta. A local history worth noting about the Champion area,
and the Carter surname, is available on the Internet at: Our Future, Our Past - Alberta Heritage Digitization
Project http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/loc_hist/page.aspx?id=3523389 "Cleverville-Champion, 1905-1970: A History of Champion and Area", by Cleverville Pioneer Club History BookCommittee, page 265, 3rd paragraph. This only denotes that there is a presence of a Carter Family in the Champion area. I suggest the following contacts to further your quest:
Champion Public Library
Contact: Patty Abel, Librarian
Box 177 / 2 Avenue South
Champion, Alberta T0L 0R0
Tel: (403) 897-3099
Fax: (403) 897-3099 Email: libcha@chinookarch.ab.ca

Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA)
8555 Roper Road
Edmonton Alberta T6E 5W1
Tel (780) 427-1750
Fax (780) 427-4646 Email paa@gov.ab.ca
http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/preserving/paa_2002/inquiries.asp

By getting the assistance of a family historian or genealogist available at the PAA, you should be able to tap
into municipal voter's list and tax records to decipher Henry Lorne Carter's time line.
Alberta Family Histories Society - Cemtery Look-up
http://www.afhs.ab.ca/data/cemeteries/search.php
- no results for Henry Lorne (or L.) Carter
May I also suggest contacting the: Alberta Genealogical Society Research Services Committee
Alberta Genealogical Society
116, 10440 - 108 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
T5H 3Z9 Canada
Telephone: 780-424-4429
Fax: 780-423-8980
Email: research2@abgensoc.ca
Website: http://abgensoc.ca/research.html

and the Alberta Family Histories Society for further help.

Alberta Family Histories Society
712 - 16 Avenue NW
Calgary, AB T2M 0J8
(403) 214-1447 (voice mail)
Website: http://www.afhs.ab.ca/

Newspapers for the Champion area:

"Alberta Newspapers: An Historical Directory, 1880-1982", by Gloria M. Strathern, pp. 60-61, is another valuable source. Champion had five (5) newspaper titles:

Champion Spokesman, 29 Apr 1914-1914, weekly, no issues located
Champion Weekly, 1917-1919(?), weekly, no issues located
Champion News, 1919-1920(?), weekly, no issues located
Champion Chronicle, 1 Jun 1919-13 Nov 1941, weekly
Chronicle, 20 Nov 1941-25 Mar 1943, weekly

- the later two newspaper are located at the Alberta Legislature Library, Edmonton, Alberta from 21 Oct 1920-5 May 1921; 2 Jul 1925-25 Mar 1943 - these newspapers can be brought in on inter-library loanto the nearest public library, please see their librarian for instructions and costs (if any).
Alberta Legislature Library

216 Legislature Building
10800 - 97th Avenue
Edmonton, AB
T5K 2B6
E-mail: library.requests@assembly.ab.ca
Phone: (780) 427-2473
FAX: (780) 427-6016
Website: http://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/library/index.htm "

Although their reply was lengthy we thought it worthwhile copying it in extenso as the information contained therein is no doubt of value to all Alberta researchers. We have conveyed our appreciation.

New Questions

Q1/28/2007 Genealogy generally. Where can I buy a pair of gloves suitable for handling valuable archival material?

Q2/28/2007. Canada. My relatives arrived in Canada in 1907, on the SS Ottawa of the Dominion Line, sailing from Liverpool to Quebec City. Many of the entries on the passenger list have a stamp that reads "British Bonus Allowed". I have never been able to find out what this means. Was it a subsidy paid by the British government to encourage emigration, or a company specific discount? Whatever it was, my ancestors did not receive the "British Bonus"

Q3/28/2007 England, WW1. I have a relative who died in the First World War, but no one seems to have ever seen his service medals. I have the medal card file and know he was entitled to the 1915 Star, Victory and British Medal. Would these have been sent to the family posthumously? We do have the bronze " Dead Mans Penny", which was issued specifically for a death. Is there a source where you can reorder medals, or even miniatures, for a charge?

Films received in the 7 days ending 12 July 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 9 August 2007

Film Content	Film No
BRB Marr Index V.101 1889	1158018
BRB Marr Index V.104 1890	1158021
ENG NFK Welney Accounts & Certificates	1040569
ENG NFK Welney BMDs - 1786	1040559
ENG NFK Welney BMDs 1755 - !876	1040568
ENG YKS Pickhill PRs 1571 - 1880	0468126
ENG YKS Sandhutton BTs 1602 - 1874	0918433
ENG YKS Thirsk BTs 1600 - 1864	0918432
IND Madras Eccl. Recs BMB 1860-1861	0521851
IRL ANT Killead 1901 Census	1952257
IRL LDY Templemore 1901 census	0819485
JAM Wills 1756 - 1930	1937930
NLD Amsterdam Marriages Jan-July 1817	0113660
POL Stendsitz RC PR BMD 1692-1846	0072746
POL Stendsitz RC PR BMD 1839-1858	1618608
RUS BES Borodino deaths 1873-1898	1198719
RUS BES Borodino PR 1817-1855	1766542
SCT INV Sleat PRs 1813 - 1853	0990672
SVK Velka Lomnica PR 1784-1944	1791933

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Paul Branson writes:

Family tree researchers are well used to being content with progress in baby steps. It is then, a rare and sublime moment when something really important appears, when you're not even looking for it. As a teenager my grandmother gave me an old pocket watch, which was inscribed on the inside "to James Bancroft...... for Bravery in the Crimean War" No one knew if this was a family relative, or if the watch may have been merely bought at a pawn shop. One day I was copying marriage indexes for siblings in my G-G-G-Grandfathers family, and when accessing the "show others on same page" feature, there was the name of James Bancroft who had married one of his sisters!! There is an entry in a book I had read on the Battle of Inkermann in the Crimean war, which describes his involvement. James was struggling with two Russian soldiers, one on the ground holding his feet, and another attempting to bayonet him. He had to viciously kick away the man on the ground in order to deal with the more immediate threat from above. Obviously he survived, but later received the stern rebuke from his sergeant "Bancroft, don't kick a man when he's down!!!"

Were you aware................

England - Crimea War Medals 1854-1855 and Afghan War Medals 1878-1880. Obviously following up from his research as illustrated above, and having found in the Family History Library Catalog that Salt Lake has CDs containing these medal rolls, Paul Branson wrote to ask if it were possible to bring in these CDs in the same way that we borrow films from Salt Lake. Well the answer is no, we can bring in only microfilms and microfiche. It is not possible to order books and CDs from Salt Lake. However, looking into the possibility that we could buy these CDs, I found that these, and a host of other CDs - parish records, school records, medal rolls, records of actors and actresses etc. are published by (to me anyway) a little known concern called YesterYears Genealogy whose website www.yesteryearsgen.com is well worth looking at. The Crimea Medal CD contains the scanned images of 6,980 pages and costs £9.99 while the Afghan Medal CD has 1,660 pages scanned and costs £19.99. Both prices are plus postage. Readers views on whether we should acquire these for the FHC would be appreciated.

USA , New York Inbound Passengers 1820-1846. John Mahler draws my attention to the existence of fully indexed lists of passengers arriving in New York between 1820 and 1846. These have been filmed by the LDS on 103 films commencing Film No. 0350204. Search the Family History Library Catalog on www.familysearch.org inserting this number on the Film/Fiche Number search to locate the actual film containing your ancestors.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 27/2007

Remember, your submissions for the News from the trenches and the Were you aware........ sections of the Bulletin are always welcome.

Next week's Counties for the UK Favourite County Sites section will be Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire.

In this Bulletin

Some amusing tales of marriages in the Carlisle area of northern England in News from the trenches and

News of church records for Armagh, Ireland becoming available on-line, another tranche of passengers leaving UK ports from 1920-1929, further British Phone Book listings becoming available and an offer of free genealogical software all brought to you in Were you aware...............

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's Counties will be Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire.

This week's Counties are Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland.

Annie Massey offers the following:

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/longtown19/index.html provides a fascinating insight to 19th Century life in Longtown, Cumberland from extracts from the Carlisle Journal and Carlisle Patriot (see examples in News from the trenches)

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/longtown20/index.html contains a good number (but not all) cemetery inscriptions
from Arthuret parish (which includes Longtown) and selected family inscriptions of other local parishes.

And Ian Robson offers:

http://www.ndfhs.org.uk/ Very useful site and you really should be a member of the NDFHS (Northumberland Durham Family History Society) if only to get their quarterly journal!

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/DUR-NBL

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/NORTHUMBRIA/2007-06

Both these Rootsweb lists, which really cover the same territory, are quite active and have many knowledgeable members.

http://www.keystothepast.info/k2p/usp.nsf/pws/keys+to+the+Past+-+home+page Covers archeological and historical buildings and monuments & has photos.

http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/northumberland/ As the name implies, Genealogy Links is a list of about two dozen sites useful for Northumberland research.

http://www.redmire.net/lookup/nbl.html Is a list of volunteers willing to do lookups for specific areas.

http://communities.northumberland.gov.uk/ A great site I’ve used a lot for historical research of towns. Lots of old photos there as well.

http://www.tomorrows-history.com/ Regional local studies site for northeastern England I use for finding, among other things, old maps

http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/dfcdeathshistorical#perfsearch A bit limited, but Newcastle has births (1837-1870) and marriages (1837-1900) on line and you might get lucky.

And Margaret Taylor gives us:

http://www.tyneandweararchives.org.uk/ Tyne & Wear Archives Service is the record office for the cities and metropolitan districts of Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Gateshead, South Tyneside and North Tyneside. Documents relating to the area from the 12th to the 21st century, and the service is free for everyone to use.
http://www.ndfhs.org.uk/Articles/index.html Northumberland & Durham Family History Society. Interesting & helpful articles from the NDFHS Journal
http://www.durhamrecordsonline.com/index.php Number of records currently available: 2,200,863
NEW:
Index to 15,122 Baptisms at: Birtley:1850-1851, Birtley (St. Joseph Roman
Catholic):1810-1840, Chester-le-Street:1809-1851, Chester-le-Street
Congregational:1813-1837, Pelton:1843-1851, Witton Gilbert:1810-1851
Marriages at Hartlepool St. Hilda's 1714-1900
http://flambard.dur.ac.uk/dynaweb/handlist/
Durham University Library -Archives & Special Collections
http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/library/asc/misc/genealogy-DULASC.pdf
A Brief Guide to chief series of records of genealogical interest in Durham University Lib Archives & Special Collections
http://familyrecords.dur.ac.uk/nei/ Durham and Northumberland probate records, 1540-1857
http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/durham/index.html Durham Genealogy Links| Censuses | Cemeteries | Marriages | Military | Passenger Lists | Parish Registers
http://www.joinermarriageindex.com/pjoiner/genuki/DUR/
Genuki - Durham

The Forum

New Question

Q1/27/2007. Canada. I am searching for information about Henry Lorne Carter. Lorne was born on August 19, 1880 in the County of Huron, Town of Clinton Ontario. His father Henry Carter died May 16, 1918 in Clinton Ontario. Henry Carter's obituary mentioned his son Henry Lorne Carter living in Champion Alberta. What happened to Lorne?

Films received in the 7 days ending 5 July, 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 2 August, 2007

Film Content	Film No
ENG SSX Newhaven PR 1754-1881	1067272
ENG WOR Tenbury pr	0992549
ENG YKS Luddenden PR 1653-1811	1542110
IND Madras BMB 1886-1887.	0521874
IND Madras BMB 1888	0463300
IND Madras BMB V.27 1848	0521846
ITL Pachino Civ Recs 1900-1910	1915695
JAM St Ann Parish BMD 1765-	1291703
NLD Sibbe-Mthly Bulletin NLD Gen.1941-	1053155
RUS BES Borodino births 1881-1903 LS	1198714
RUS BES Borodino births 1881-1903 RS	1198713
USA MA Deaths 1921-1925	0954727

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

England , Cumberland. Marriage report from the Carlisle Journal of September 20, 1823 (see site mentioned above in Favourite UK County Sites):

"At Arthuret on Monday last, Edward Finley, who had been a soldier in the Guards above 18 years. The hardy veteran disdained to march without music; of course a fiddler (that had never fiddled before) walked before the happy pair, who on their return from church received the clamorous salutations of nearly all the children in the town. The valiant son of Mars, who never turned his back upon an enemy, dared not to face this novel and noisy attack, but took to flight, leaping hedges and ditches, leaving his fair bride to trudge home, preceded, if not by music, at least by a man carrying a fiddle."
And from the Carlisle Patriot of September 18, 1841:

"At Gretna, on Sunday week, Mr William Morrison of Longtown, the celebrated author, orator and wrestler, to Miss Martha Tweddle, Lodging House Keeper of Brampton. This is the fifth time Mr Morrison has been married".

Were you aware..................

James Thomson writes:

I contributed the following to the May 17, 2007 Bulletin 20/2007

" Ireland: Last week, the Irish Family History Foundation, which coordinates the county-based genealogical research centres in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, signed an agreement with a technology company to launch pay-per-use online access to the databases held by the centres: http://www.irish-roots.net/view-details.asp?NewsID=66. Note the last few lines of the announcement: "This is the most exciting development in Irish genealogy since the county centres began indexing records in the late 1980s. The first centres will be online later this month. Watch this space for further information. Please sign up to our mailing list if you wish to be advised when new data is added to the pay Per View system." A suggestion: in the meantime, don't overlook certain existing online indexes comprising the Central Signposting Index: http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/csi/csi_main.cfm. Two other examples of the same type (in that they are the product of bodies which have been part of the same program) are DublinHeritage.ie (limited data) (http://www.dublinheritage.ie/) and the databases of the Ulster Historical Foundation (Antrim and Down): http://www.ancestryireland.com/database.php ."

The first of the new databases have now been uploaded; these are for Armagh and can been reached at http://armagh.brsgenealogy.com/. For more information, see http://www.irish-roots.net/view-details.asp?NewsID=68.

James also points out:

United Kingdom Another decade (1920-1929) of BT 27 overseas passenger lists departing from ports in the United Kingdom has just been added to the online database: www.ancestorsonboard.com As noted in the news bulletin, in the 1920s the passenger's last address in the United Kingdom began to be added to the information which was recorded.

United Kingdom Ancestry has just added a third tranche ("release") of data to its British Phone Books, 1880-1984 database, which is descibed at: http://content.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=1025 . This database is included in AncestryLibraryEdition, which is freely available to all Toronto Public Library (TPL) cardholders at all TPL branches and at the Toronto Family History Centre.

And we hear:-

Genealogy. Findmypast.com at www.findmypast.com announced today that they are supplying, free of charge, a genealogy software programme. They say " Family Tree Builder has been developed by leading US genealogy firm PedigreeSoft and is designed to be intuitive and easy for beginners but also sophisticated enough for even the most advanced of family historians. This new and innovative software allows you to start building a tree from scratch, or upload your existing one from any family tree programme. And because it's online, you can use it anywhere".

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 26/2007

Our email problems continue. Last week the Yahoo.ca addresses did not bounce back - as they normally do - but the Yahoo.com ones did and whereas when we send the yahoo.ca out again, not as blind copies, they go through, the Yahoo.com ones again bounced. Having looked into it further it seems we need to purchase some specialist software which would send the Bulletin out personalised to every subscriber but I think we would be a bit reluctant to spend our funds in this way.

I could do with some help in compiling these Bulletins. If you have an interesting story for News from the trenches or can throw some light on a little known source for Were you aware......... section, then please let me have them.

Next weeks counties for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland.

In this Bulletin

A give-away book in Announcements

Some discussion on the curmudgeon minister of Hawick in News from the trenches

A Society for you to join for all those readers who can identify a rogue - a real rogue - among your ancestors in Were you aware............

Announcements

Canada Day Closing. The Family History Centre will be closed on Saturday, June 30 and Monday July 2.

Freebie. Thanks to a donation we have two copies of a hard cover book - "The Oxford Guide to Family History" - so we are giving away the spare copy. First come, first served.

Additions to our Permanent Collection

We are pleased to report the following additions, generously donated.

England & Wales. Book "Discovering your Family History" by Don Steel.

England , Somerset, Martock. Book. "The Martock Genealogist" by Roy Maber.

Ireland . Book. "Irish Genealogy - A Record Finder" by Donal F. Begley.

United Kingdom . Book. "Naval Records for Genealogists" Published by The Public Record Office.

India . Book. "The Records of the East India College, Haileybury" by Anthony Farrington.

Canada . Book. "Checklist of Parish Registers 1981". Published by Public Archives Canada.

Canada , Quebec, Beaumont. Book. "Baptisms of Saint Etienne 1692-1985" by Rosaire Saint-Pierre.

Canada , Ontario, Northumberland County. Book. "Wesleyan Methodist Baptisms Registers 1834-1902" by Linda Corupe.

Canada , Quebec, Saint-Severe. Book. "Marriages 1856-1978". Published by Societe de Genealogie, Trois Rivieres.

Canada , Ontario, Frontenac County. Book. "Wesleyan Methodist Baptism Registers 1835-1902" by Linda Corupe.

Canada , Ontario, Ernestown. Book. "The Anglican Registers of Rev. John Langhorn 1787-1814". Published by the OGS, Kingston Branch.

Canada , Ontario, Portland Township. Book. " Portland Township Census 1861" Published by the OGS, Kingston Branch.

Canada , Ontario, St Catharines. Book. "Sincerely Lamented, St. Catharines Obituaries 1817-1918" by Paul Hutchinson.

And also:

England , Shropshire, St. Martin. Monumental Inscriptions of St. Martin of Tours Church 1695-1978 (Fiche No. 6343567 - 2 fiche).

England , Northamptonshire, Woodford nr. Daventry. Parish Register Baptisms 1813-1840 (Fiche No. 6129475 - 2 fiche).

England , Northamptonshire, Woodford nr. Thrapston. Parish Register Baptisms 1813-1857 (Fiche No. 6129459 - 2 fiche).

USA New England. Compendium of New England Gazetteers. A compendium of 10 early New England Gazetteers (CD published by Archive CD Books USA, kindly donated by Linda Reid)

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's counties will be Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland.

This week's Counties are London and Middlesex. Jeanette Colgan offers the following:

http://www.victorianlondon.org/ Has links to very good old maps of London. See where your ancestors lived and many other interesting things about London.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ Find out if your ancestors went to trial - London and surrounding area.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php A very helpful forum for genealogy buffs, has specific boards for London and Middlesex. A lot can be discovered just by browsing or you can join free and post your own questions.

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/25/2007. England/Canada. Herbert Harold Harrison born 1885 Yorkshire emigrated to Canada 1910, parents gravestone in England indicates he died 13 Dec 1913. Known to have Ontario connections but cannot find death in Ontario or England.

Gwen Armstrong writes "I believe that Herbert Harold Harrison died in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Registered as Herbert Harrison, age 27, died 19 Dec 1913. Registered in St. Boniface, reg # 1913-071087.

A copy of this record can be ordered from the Manitoba Government at the Province of Manitoba Vital Statistics Genealogy Searches for Unrestricted Records website. http://web2.gov.mb.ca/cca/vital/Query.php

On this site you can search for births more than 100 years ago, marriages more than 80 years ago and deaths more than 70 years ago.

Do your search and when you have found the record you are searching for, click on Select Record, and then return to the search page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can view your shopping cart. If you click on view, a Request for Copy of Genealogy Record will be displayed that you can print. This form can then be mailed or faxed. The cost of a record is $12.00 and can be paid for by cheque, money order or credit card".

Q2/25/2007. Ireland. Finding graves where the grave has been reused. My impression is that churches (unlike civic cemeteries) do not keep plans of the actual location of the graves and once the original gravestone have been removed it would not be possible to establish where the grave was. However it should be possible to discover whether an ancestor is likely to have been buried in a particular churchyard although there must be plenty of cases where the burial service was conducted in a church but the body transported elsewhere for burial. In your case (burials in Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone) the parish records have been transcribed and indexed, the indexes being in the possession of Irish World - see www.irish-world.com

Films Received in the 7 days ending 28 June 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 26 July 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN BC marriages 1928	2074552
DEU Repatriated Germans-Burgardt	1806295
ENG 60th Reg Foot-McGuire	0898133
ENG CHS Wallasey BTs 1750-1878	1836285
ENG LEI Bagworth pr	0585300
ENG YKS Bradford BTs 1829-1832	0990538
ENG YKS Halifax BTs 1830-1837	0990602
ENG YKS Ovenden Meth Ch BTs 1779-1837	0828150
IRL DOW Belfast 1901 Census	0829084
IRL DOW Belfast 1901 Census	0829083
ITL Pachino Civ Recs 1884-1899	1466349
RUS BES Beresina Familybook 1834-	1766557
RUS BES Beresina Familybook 1846-	1768263
RUS BES Beresina PR 1817-1861	1766556

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Scotland . Last week we reported some unusual descriptions of the deceased appearing in the parish burial record of Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland. Daniel Parkinson writes:-

"I enjoyed the entries Mary selected but don't agree that the minister was disrespectful. In Scottish families, and this was true in Canada as well, individuals were often known by their nicknames which was the only way to know who was being spoken of, as many in a community would have the same names. A person with knowledge of family nicknames, would be able to identify that the recorded death for Thomas Scott was the person searched for by the addition of "Wicked Tommy" Despite James Irvine being noted as a miser, someone benefited from his "gift". Was it to the church? I have found that it is a risky practice to judge our ancestors by modern standards of behaviour and protocol".

Editors note: I cannot altogether agree with this interpretation. All the entries were in the same hand and the entries preceding them and the entries appearing on the same film for adjoining parishes did not have these embellishments so why would this minister have found it necessary to identify them in this way? In Wales, because of the predominance of certain surnames it is quite usual for someone to be known as Jones the Milk, to differentiate him from Jones the Sweep and Jones the Cobbler i.e. using a trade to define who is being referred to. And whilst on the subject of Welshmen take a look at the piece on Black Sheep in the Were you aware............section.

Were you aware................

International. There is an International Blacksheep Society of Genealogists whose membership is open to anyone who can establish a direct relationship to someone who is, or was undoubtedly a Black Sheep. This term is not precisely defined but murder and robbery would definitely seem to qualify. Details on http://blacksheep.rootsweb.com

And now going back to Welshmen and modern standards, I remember a nursery rhyme that started off "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief". I suppose that somebody is going to tell me that in the interests of political correctness and the avoidance of racial stereotypes, this rhyme has long since been expunged from every nursery rhyme book and all known copies of books with it in have been pulped, the residue having been dumped in a site registered to take toxic waste.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 25/2007

Our email problems continue. Although those addressees whose provider is yahoo.ca bounce back to us each week, we can cope with that and send them out again individually. The real problem is those that don't bounce back since we have no way of knowing of their non-delivery unless readers report it to us. Many thanks to those readers that have offered suggestions. However it is not a problem with the anti-spam settings on reader's individual computers since this would not account for the Bulletin being received some weeks and not others. We understand that other organisations are having similar problems.

Next week's Counties for the Favourite UK County Sites section will be London and Middlesex.

In this Bulletin

Read what a curmudgeon of a minister in Hawick, Scotland had to say about some of his parishioners in News from the trenches.

News of Ancestry.com offering a DNA testing service in Were you aware............

Announcements

We fast and then we feast. Last week we reported that no films had arrived in the previous 7 days. This week 56 have arrived - see below for details. Delivery times seem to be back to normal.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

England , Buckinghamshire Broughton Marriages 1720-1837 (CD FTM32)

England , Buckinghamshire Lathbury Marriages 1690-1837 (CD FTM32)

England , Buckinghamshire Moulsoe Marriages 1559-1837 (CD FTM32)

England , Buckinghamshire Newport Pagnell Marriages 1558-1837 (CD FTM32)

England , Derbyshire Derby, All Saints, Marriages 1558-1837 (CD FTM31)

England , Middlesex Chelsea St. Luke's Marriages 1803-1837 (CD FHM1)

The Forum

New Question

Q1/25/2007. England/Canada. Herbert Harold Harrison born 14 May 1885 at Huggate, Yorkshire emigrated to Canada in 1910. An inscription on his parents grave stone in England says "Harold Harrison died on 13 Dec 1913" . To all family knowledge Harold never married and there were family connections with Ontario in the mid/late 1800's but I cannot find a record of his death in Ontario or England. Any suggestions?

Q2/25/2007. Ireland. Reusing Graves. Seeing the item on this in the recent weekly bulletin brought to mind the following experience and question. When I visited Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland, where I believe my grandfather, and probably my great grandfather, as well as others were buried in the Church of Ireland cemetery, I could find no evidence. I spoke to the person responsible for taking care of the church and cemetery, and he explained that about 1977 or so, the church advertised in local newspapers, and unless family members expressed a desire to keep old existing graves active, gravestones were removed and the gravesites reconsecrated for new use. I didn’t think to pursue the matter more at the time, but In retrospect it seems strange that there would not be some archival record of those gravestones removed. Does anyone know if the UK situation applies to in Northern Ireland, at least for the Church of Ireland, and whether tracing graves reconsecrated is possible?

Favourite UK County Sites.

Next week's County will be London and Middlesex.

This week's County is Somerset .

Several readers responded and submitted the following:

www.somerset.gov.uk/archives/ - Somerset Archive and Record Service exists to find, preserve and make available written records of Somerset's people and communities

http://www.bathbmd.org.uk/. Great website for BMD for the Bath area.In progress but almost complete

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ian.sage/index.htm PR transcriptions index for Somerset. http://www.parkhouse.org.uk/index.htm Roy Parkhouse's site.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sarahhawkins/parish_transcriptions.htm Sarah Hawkins' South Somerset transcriptions:

http://wsomparreg.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ Stogumber, Somerset churchyard plan.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nmfa/Directories/pigot_directory_of_somerset_c1844/ Pigot's Directory of Somerset 1844.

Films received in the 7 days ending 21 June 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 19 July 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN BC births 1900	2134886
CAN BC deaths 1905	1927114
CAN BC deaths 1907	1927123
CAN BC marriages 1888	1983529
CAN BC marriages 1893	1983524
CAN BC marriages 1904	1983530
CAN BC marriages 1910	1983703
CAN BC marriages 1923	2074316
CAN BC marriages 1926	2074505
CAN ON Lincoln Co Marriages 1924	1838209
ENG HAM Binstead Parish Chest	1565952
ENG HAM Binstead PR Bapt 1653-1864	1041227
ENG 17th Regiment of Foot 1760-1854	0876928
ENG 34th Regiment of Foot 1760-1854	0885439
ENG DEV Musbury PR 1614-1837	0917202
ENG ESS Barking Muniments	1966258
ENG KEN Canterbury Bnds & Alleg 1777-79	1894571
ENG LAN Liverpool St Peter C 1823-1826	0093876
ENG LAN Liverpool St Peter C 1835-1837	0093881
ENG LAN Liverpool St Peter C 1839-1841	0093883
ENG LAN Liverpool St Peter C 1841-1846	0093884
ENG LIN E. Allington pr 1750-1940	1542354
ENG Mil Rec WW1 box 7261/2 Moores	2029129
ENG NFK Southery Ats 1706-1811	2186449
ENG SFK Tuddenham St Martin PR	0992049
ENG SSX Brede PRs 1559 - 1837	1364151
ENG SSX Westfield PRs 1540 - 1837	1364169
ENG WW1 Burnt Records 'Drake'	1735985
ENG WW1 Burnt Records 'Wilkins'	2028525
ENG WWI Burnt records Edwd Keir-	2325148
ENG YKS Darfield land tax 1784-1832	1658054
FRA RHN Lyon PRs 1711 - 1713	0727768
FRA RHN Lyon PRs 1714 - 1720	0727769
FRA RHN Lyon PRs 1742 - 1745	0727776
FRA RHN Lyon PRs 1746 - 1749	0727777
FRA RHN Lyon PRs 1750 - 1753	0727778
IND Bengal BMB vol 205 Jul-Sep 1888	0510885
IND Bengal BMB vol 470/1 Jun-Sep 1923	0527568
IOM Douglas St Matthew's PR's 1718-1849	0106718
IOM K. Braddan PR's 1849 - 1860	0106188
IOM K.Braddan PR's 1626 - 1849	0106708
IOM K.German PR's 1849 - 1883	0106177
IRL FER Drumhoney Census 1911	2145440
NLD Meclemblik PR	0115811
SCT C of S & United Churches Rec.Indx	1368204
SCT The James Rusland Family	1750819
SCT Unitarian & R.C. Church Records	1368203
USA MO Linn Co. Marr 1857-1897	1009871
USA PA Alegheny Deeds index O-S	1533099
USA PA Alegheny Deeds index S-Z	1533174
USA PA Allegheny Orphans Crt 1847-50	0866208
USA PA Allegheny Orphans Crt 1850-53	0866209
USA PA Allegheny Orphans Crt 1853-54	0866210
USA PA Allegheny Orphans Crt 1854-55	0866211
USA PA Allegheny Orphans Crt 1855-57	0866212
ZAF Natal deceased estates 1918	1295111

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Mary Crandall spotted some marvellous entries in the Parish Register of Burials in Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland.

Samples:

Unnoted year. April 5. Isabel Leithead (dirty tibby), spouse of James Leithead, labourer.

Unnoted year. April 12. William Anderson (happy Joe) child of William Anderson.

Unnoted year. April 14. William Nichol (Will o the pit) died in Dumfries house of correction.

1823. February 1. Robert Scott, commonly called Oily Rob, 86.

1836. July 3. Thomas Scott, carter (called Wicked Tommy).

1836. August 1. Jane Ekron (called Old Tush)

1838. May 18. William Tinline (Will The Nag).

1838. May 20. John Wilson (Punch Bowl)

1860. February 7. Isabel Murray (tibby the hoddock)

1860. February 21. James Irvine (the miser died in a lodging house and gift a considerable sum of money).

Seems that the minister was not overly respectful of the dead.

Were you aware................

Christina Scott has sent us an article from the Salt Lake Tribune of 17 June wherein it is announced that The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, has joined with Sorenson Genomics of Salt Lake City to provide a DNA testing and publishing service. Ancestry.com will begin selling self-test kits on line at "somewhere between $100 and $200". The swab will be forwarded to Sorenson who will determine the customer's genetic profile. The profile will be uploaded to an Ancestry.com database and should a link be found with another profile the customer will be notified. The kit will be made available without signing up for Ancestry.com.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 24/2007

Help Needed. Does anyone have bulk emailing experience? This Bulletin is sent out to over 400 people each week, all having asked to receive it. The problem is that we know that not everyone receives it - I did not get my own copy last week and one reader who is on the list under two different names consistently receives only one. Both of us have Toronto Family History in our address books. Does anyone know how to get around this problem?

Next week's County for the Favourite UK County sites will be Somerset.

In this Bulletin

Please see Announcements for a previously unscheduled closing

Some interesting statistics and the intricacies of Scottish divorce in Were you aware.................

Announcements

We regret that due to staffing difficulties the Toronto Family History Centre will be closed at 2 p.m tomorrow afternoon, Friday 15 June (instead of the normal 4 p.m. closing).

The National Institute of Genealogical Studies announce a free lecture given by Dr. Bruce Durie, Academic Director, Genealogical Studies, University of Strathclyde to be held on Tuesday 3 July from 7 to 10 p.m. in Room 728, University of Toronto Claude Bissell Building, 140 St. George Street. Topics will include Regular and Irregular marriages in Scotland before 1834, Wills, Testaments, Inventories and Retours - Inheritance in Scotland. Registration in advance is essential - call 416 861 0165 to register for what is obviously going to be a popular event.

The Tuesday evening session at the Toronto Family History Centre is now discontinued until after Labour Day.

No films have been received this week. We have no reason to believe that we are returning to a period of long delays in the delivery of films - probably just a hiccup in the postal service.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's County will be Somerset. Your contributions are requested.

Last week's Counties were Devon and Cornwall. Eve Richardson has written to add some important sites. "For those of us (few though we may be) whose Devon (and other West Country) roots include Jewish ancestry, I would like to add two other very important sites: The Exeter Synagogue Archive: http://www.jewishgen.org/JCR-uk/community/exe/history.htm The Susser Archive: http://www.jewishgen.org/JCR-uk/susser/ Anyone with an interest in the history of the Jewish communities of Devon and Cornwall should have a look at these sites".

This week's County is Warwickshire. Alas we have not had a single response.

Films received in the 7 days ending 14 June 2007.

No films have been received this week.

News from the trenches

Just before Christmas I was successful in solving a problem set by the TV show Ancestors in the Attic. A lady living in Toronto who was adopted as a baby in Glasgow wanted to find who her birth parents were and whether she had any siblings. I discovered that she had a half brother living in England and Ancestors took her over there and filmed the first meeting. Both of them are absolutely delighted that they have made contact. As the brother is now visiting Toronto the adopted lady invited me to her home to meet her and her brother and the rest of her Toronto family. It was a pleasure to have been able to help these gracious people.

Were you aware...............

Scotland , Divorce. In 2006 there were 55,690 births registered in Scotland and 55,089 deaths. 29,896 people were married and 13,013 were divorced. However, the figure for divorces represented a large increase over the number granted in 2005 (10,940) due to a change in the law.

For centuries divorce laws in Scotland were more liberal than they were in England. In 1573 desertion was added to adultery as being a ground for divorce but it was not until 1938 that cruelty also became a ground. In 1976 another ground “unreasonable behaviour” – subsequently to receive very wide interpretations – was added, as was the concept of divorce by agreement. If both parties were agreed, divorce became possible after two years separation and without the agreement after five years separation. On 4 May 2006 a new law came into effect whereby divorce after a one year separation was possible provided that both parties were agreed and after two years without such an agreement and this change in the law was, no doubt, responsible for the spike in the number of divorces noted above. Prior to 1984 divorce cases were heard by the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh (equivalent to the High Court) but from 1984 divorce cases could be heard locally in a Sheriff’s Court.

The papers of divorces heard before 1984 are held in the National Archives of Scotland although searching for them seems to be rather a cumbersome process involving searching two indexes before the researcher is able to get at the files containing the actual papers. From 1984 the General Register Office for Scotland has compiled a register of divorces but does not hold the papers. If the case was heard in the Court of Sessions the papers are held by the Court for six years (longer if children under the age of 16 were involved in the divorce settlement) at which point they are passed to the National Archives. If the case was heard in a Sheriff’s Court then the papers would be held by the Sheriff’s Clerk.

It does not appear to be possible to search for Scottish divorce records on-line. Should you want to search these records let us know and we will contact our friendly Edinburgh researcher whose charges are always very reasonable.

United Kingdom . Re-use of old graves. Cemeteries in the United Kingdom run by Local Councils are to be allowed to re-use old graves after 75 years, (hitherto 100 years) after seeking permission from surviving relatives. How hard they have to look for relatives is not specified. The preferred method is to lift existing remains, deepen the grave and lay a new coffin on top. Of the approximately 500,000 deaths in the U.K. each year, 350,000 are cremated.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 23/2007

Next week's County for the Favourite UK County sites will be Warwickshire. Please send us details of the sites you find useful. Still wanting too, questions for The Forum. And would someone like to take some time off from their Sudoku puzzle and solve this week's Forum question.

In this Bulletin

In a generous mood this week - a reduction in the charge for films and we're giving away a valuable book - see Announcements

Some interesting tales in News from the Trenches

Announcements

Reduction in Film Charges. Due to the improvement in the exchange rate of the Canadian Dollar against the U.S. Dollar we are able to reduce our charge to patrons for the ordering or renewing of a microfilm from $7.00 to $6.50, effective Friday 8 June, 2007.

Tuesday evening session. We will be discontinuing the Tuesday evening Family History Centre session through the summer. The last session will be on Tuesday 12 June. We will resume this session shortly after Labour Day, the exact date to be announced later. This announcement supercedes the announcement made in Bulletin 21/2007.

Book Give-away. We have a copy of the 1988 edition of James G. Ryan's "Irish Records Sources for Family & Local History" to give away. We have a more recent copy of this book which we regard as the book for Irish record sources,but the earlier edition is still relevant in most respects. First come, first served.

Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society will be holding its final meeting before the summer break on Monday, June 25 at 7:30 pm in the auditorium at the North York Central Library. The main speaker will be Ruth Burkholder talking about Where did all Great-Grandma's Children Go in North America?: Strategies for Finding People after 1900. There will also be a mini-presentation from Diana Thomson on Untangling Great-Grandma's Roots: A collaborative study of an isolated Orkney community.

The Forum

New Question Q1/23/2007. Canada/USA/Ireland. My grandmother, Florence Edna Josephine Wilkinson, or Wilkison, is shown in the 1900 Census of Detroit, Michigan as Edna J. Wilkison and being born in Michigan in October 1896. Her mother, Elizabeth is shown as being born in Canada E in March 1856 and gives her mother's place of birth as Ireland. Her father, Edward is shown as being born in Kentucky in October 1855. Elizabeth is shown as having immigrated into the USA in 1880 and there is in fact another daughter, Anna G, who is shown as having being born in Michigan in August 1881 lending credence to this. I don't know Elizabeth's maiden name and I can't find a marriage either in Ontario or Michigan of Elizabeth and Edward. According to family legend both Elizabeth and Edward died in 1903 and my grandmother was shipped to live with a family in Ontario named Wells.

I would like to find birth, marriage and death records for Elizabeth and Edward and the birth record of my grandmother who was always known as Edna. Any ideas anybody?

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's County - Warwickshire. Let's us hear from you Black Country people.

Addition to last week's County, Norfolk. Helen Billing writes: "There is a good list of Norfolk Consistory Court wills, some parish settlement papers and even a few coroner's inquests on http://nrocat.norfolk.gov.uk " (And see the interesting things you can find amongst the Coroner's Records in News from the trenches.

And now for this week's County - Devon . Frances Radford has come up with a wonderful list of sites which we detail below:

www.devon.gov.uk/etched - a collection of illustrations of places, people and events all over Devon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/ - BBC Devon pages

http://www.cheritonbishop.org.uk/ - website for the village of Cheriton Bishop, Devon

http://www.john.lerwill.btinternet.co.uk/personal/country.htm - Country Life in Devon

http://www.dartmoorpress.clara.net/index.html - Dartmoor Press website - lots of stuff about Dartmoor

http://www.rootsweb.com/~engdev/index.html - Devon Gen Web

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~valhender/dirtrans/ - Pigots 1830 Directory of Devon

http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ - Devon Family History Society website

http://www.devonlife.co.uk/ - Devon Life Magazine

http://www.devonheritage.org/index.htm - A collection of Devon History and other information

http://www.devon.gov.uk:8080/record_office.htm - Devon Records Office

http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/index.html - Exeter history

http://www.foda.org.uk/main/about.htm - transcriptions of the 1723 oath of allegiance rolls for Devon and Exeter, the 1744 and 1779 replies to Bishop's visitation queries and Devon Freeholder's Books 1711-1799

http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/ - Exeter Express & Echo website

http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ - A compendium of Devon information

http://www.moretonhampstead.org.uk/ - Village of Moreton Hampstead website

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~terryw/index.htm#plymouth_directories - info on Plymouth and Southwest Devon

http://www.modbury-heritage.co.uk/ - history of the village of Modbury

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3033/churches.html - Devon churches

http://ca.geocities.com/stokedamerelopc@rogers.com/ - website for the OPC for Stoke Damerel

and Jean Harris writes:

"The very best for Devon is Genuki Devon:

http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/

The list administrator is extremely good at adding links for web sites of everything and anything relating to Devon. So you will find many web sites listed there. Also he has entered all the Devon names I have extracted from the various calendars (Brit Record Socty Index Library volumes at the Refce Library) for PCC wills 1383-1699.

Another site that one of our DEVON-L rootsweb.com subscribers has recently found (and to be listed on Genuki Devon) is:

http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/culturetourism/libraries/localstudies/etched.htm?url=etched/ixbin/hixclient.exe&_IXP_=1&_IXR=100329
I copied this from the DEVON-L message and it should work OK!"

Films Received in the 7 days ending 7 June 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 5 July 2007

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Essex 1924 Marriages	2266891
ENG LAN Ringley PR 1836-1940	2356507
ENG MDX Holborn list of newcomers	0569943
ENG WW1 burnt records Jones, Thomas	2300814
IRL DOW Knockbreda/Belfast 1901 Cen	0829087
IRL DOW Knockbreda/Belfast 1901 Cen	0829973
POL Kalisz RC PR	1980838
POL Kalisz RC PR	0814722
POL Przasnysz RC PR 1871-1884	1809615
POL Przasnysz RC PR 1871-1890	1809610
USA NY Albany Rural Cem. index Burns-	0415533
USA NY Albany Rural Cem. index Stover-	0415539

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Among the Coroner's Records Helen directed us to (see Favourite UK County Sites) is the following entry:- "John Carpenter, age 40. 19 June 1773, St. Stephen. He was thrown and kicked by his horse near the cockey. Verdict. Accidental Death". While I was still wincing I discovered that cockey is a word of saxon derivation meaning watercourse, and that the Great Cockey flows through Norwich.

And I am indebted further to Helen for the following:

"What did Your Ancestor do?

I have occasionally puzzled over the occupations listed in the census for my ancestors and have turned to a couple of books we have in the FHC library – “What did they do?” and “Langham’s Occupation List” (found on BK1-2). But a Glasgow census entry, transcribed on Ancestry.com and shown me by one patron, was quite unusual. The occupation listed was “Cugmeers Fetter”. We had no idea what that might be. Thinking about how it could be written, led us to postulate that “fetter” could be:

1. Fitter - originally a joiner

in the 19c, a person who assembled several portions of machinery

a mechanic who uses a lathe

a coal broker who conducts sales of coal between colliery & shipper

2. Felter - a worker in the hatting industry

3. Fuller - one who fulls (changes & thickens) cloth using fuller’s earth

4. Feller - textile worker who laid or felled seams in material

tree or wood cutter

5. Filler - a person who filled bobbins in mills

6. Fettler - a textile worker

The patron felt that the person could be involved in the textile industry as his sister was but ten years later in 1891, he was an apprentice blacksmith. Although we have a number of possibilities for “Fetter”, what on earth is “Cugmeers” - the name of a company? Maybe viewing the census image would provide the answer.

So if you are puzzled by an occupation, have a look in our library. You could add an interesting tidbit to your family tree".

Were you aware................

UK . British Phone Books 1880-1984. If you, like me, were a bit disappointed at the coverage when the British Phone Books went on-line at Ancestry.com , it might be worthwhile taking a second look. They now have 772 directories on-line and testing it out I was able to trace the whereabouts of various people in the 60's and 70's.

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Toronto Family History Bulletin 22/2007

Lots of interesting things to report this week but still no new questions for The Forum. We had an underwhelming response too for this week's Favourite UK County Site - Norfolk - so for next week we will combine two counties, Devon and Cornwall. We know a number of you are involved with these counties so please, let us have the details of the sites you use.

In this Bulletin

See the Additions to our Permanent Collections for news on some really useful fiche, generously donated.

We continue to plug the usefulness of the WW1 Burnt and Unburnt Records films. Further evidence now in News from the Trenches.

News of 3 more significant datasets which have been added to the British Origins website, of a free offer by Ancestry.com and of the usefulness of the Odessa3 site to patrons with ancestors in Germany and Eastern Europe all in the Were you aware........ section.

Announcements

The film arrival situation continues to improve. We now have only one film outstanding from the order we placed on 26 April and all previous orders have now been received.

The Quebec Family History Society are holding their Roots 2007 30 TH Anniversary International Conference on June 15-June 17 at McGill University, Montreal. Full details on www.qfhs.ca

The Ontario Genealogical Society and the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library are presenting a one day workshop on Dutch Family History on Saturday, August 11. Full details on www.torontofamilyhistory.org

The Ontario Genealogical Society, Toronto Branch, have given us details of their Autumn 2007 courses. Brief details:

Basic Genealogy and Family History. Oct. 2 – Nov. 20 (Tuesdays 2-4 pm)

Intro to English Family History Research. Oct. 4 – Oct.25 (Thursdays 2-4 pm)

Researching Community and Municipal Records. Oct. 20 (Saturday 9.30 am – 12.30 pm)

Where’s there’s a Will, There’s a Way: Finding Ontario Estate Files. Oct. 27 – Nov. 3 (Saturdays 10.15 am – 12.15 pm)

Advertising your Ancestors. Oct. 24 – Nov. 03 (Saturdays 2 – 4 pm).

Finding your Ancestors in Newspapers. Nov. 15 – Nov. 22 (Thursdays 6 – 8 pm)

British Army Records. Nov. 17 – Dec. 8 (Saturdays 2 – 4 pm).

Details of these courses are available in the Toronto Family History Centre but do not appear to be posted, as yet, on the OGS Toronto Branch website www.torontofamilyhistory.org

Additions to our Permanent Collections

USA . Rhode Island. Nichols family genealogy. Fiche No. 6088197 (2 fiche).

Ireland . Ulster. Discovering Ulster Origins. Fiche No. 6085757 (1 fiche)

England . Staffordshire. Alrewas. Parish Register. Baptisms 1841-1882. Fiche No. 6114770. (4 fiche)

England . Staffordshire. Alrewas. Parish Register. Marriages 1837-1901. Fiche No. 6114771. (5 fiche).

Our grateful thanks go to Jean Harris who has donated the following microfiche.

Ireland . Index to Irish Wills 1913. (2 fiche).

Ireland . Pigot's Directory of Ireland 1824 covering Connaught, Munster and Ulster. (4 fiche).

England . Berkshire. Pigot's Directory 1823-1824. (1 fiche).

England . Dorset. Poll Book 1807. (2 fiche)

England . Dorset. Pigot's Directory 1823-1824 (1 fiche)

England . Dorset. Pigot's Directory 1830. (1 fiche)

England . Essex. Pigot's Directory 1823-1824 (1 fiche).

England . Gloucestershire. Bristol. Rev. Beaven Bristol Lists 1525-1899 (electoral appointments) (2 fiche)

England . Hampshire (including Isle of Wight). Pigot's Directory 1830. (2 fiche).

England . Shropshire (Salop). Directory 1828. (2 fiche).

England . Shropshire. Pigot's Directory 1830. (1 fiche).

England . Somerset. Pigot's directory 1830. (2 fiche)

England . Sussex Poll Book 1734. (2 fiche)

England . Sussex. Pigot's Directory 1823-1824 (1 fiche)

England . Wiltshire. Slater's Directory 1850. (1 fiche).

Genealogy General. Human Longevity - J. Easton - 1799 (2 fiche).

Favourite UK County Sites.

Next week's counties (see note at the beginning of this Bulletin) will be Devon and Cornwall. Details required of sites used by all you West Country researchers.

This week's county:

Norfolk .

Alan Billing writes:- "A small website that recently has been useful for me is at www.gravestonephotos.com, which includes several counties, with variable coverage. It includes about 32 parishes in Norfolk, which is far from complete coverage. The monumental inscriptions are indexed by name, and you can search for a surname through all the entries of all counties at
once. It apparently is possible to obtain a photographic image of a monument of interest".

Films received in the 7 days ending 31 May 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 28 June 2007.

Film Content	Film No
DEU BAD Urloffen RC BMB 1657-1900	0949963
DEU BAD Urloffen RC Marr 1747-1798	0949965
DEU PRU Army bmd 1832-1940	0072972
ENG 4th Reg foot 1760-1854	0864781
ENG CHS Wallasey PR 1594-1812	0090135
ENG CHS Wallasey PR 1813-1903	1737061
ENG SAL Wentnor BT 1638-1867	0992622
ENG SOM Norton St Phillips PR 1781-	1597208
IND Bengal BMB Jul-Sep 1927	0527591
IND Bombay BMB Vol 45 1871	0523847
ITL Barete Civ. Reg. 1860-1864	2013666
ITL Barete Civ. Reg. 1865	2013735
ITL Barete Civ. Reg. 1866-1892	1170519
ITL Barete Civ. Reg. 1893-1910	1168313
NLD Amsterdam Marr 1750-1811 W-Z	0456071
SCT ROX Hawick PR 1819-1854	1067936
UKR L'viv Met Bks Vol 618-2, 400-408	2394865
USA AK Bio. Memoirs of East. Arkansas	0934823
USA NY Oneida Bible Recs 1744-1910	1435190

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Dorothy Stewart tells us that having ordered a WW1 Unburnt Records film hoping that it would provide details of her grandfather’s military career and having been disappointed when it produced absolutely nothing she did not have great hopes of success when she ordered the Burnt Records film in January.

However, having waited 4 months for the film to arrive – which it finally did last week – what a bonanza of information it provided. She copied 20 pages from his file – and that was not all of them – which gave her not only information on his assignments during the war but more importantly about the character of the man himself. There were letters written by Dorothy’s grandmother and her great grandmother giving Dorothy insight into the family situation and possibly a hint of why things played out the way they did. And to cap it all, on the very same day, Dorothy received an email from a lady in New Zealand who happened to live next door to the cemetery where Dorothy’s husband’s great grandmother was buried enclosing photographs of the grave plus the graves of two of her daughters together with copies of their burial records!

Were you aware....................

Ancestry.com Deanna Cassidy advises us that for the period 26 May to 6 June, Ancestry.com are offering free access to their collection of US Military Records.

UK & Ireland. That increasingly useful website www.originsnetwork.com have added three significant databases to their site. The information below is copied from their site.

1.Migration North America to Britain and Ireland 1858-1870. The only surviving ships' passenger lists for ships returning to Britain and Ireland from North America between 1858 and 1870. Because of the threat of an uprising in Ireland, the government required that ports in Britain and Ireland submit their incoming ships' passenger lists. These records were deposited at The National Archives of Ireland and are not available at the UK National Archives. The Index contains all details recorded on these documents as well as lists of ships and details of their voyages. Over 42,000 names are recorded most of whom were of Irish, English or Scottish origins.

2.Boyd’s Family Units

Boyd's London Inhabitants dataset has been extended by a further 10,000 Boyd’s Family Units family sheets which include 137,000 names. Families from London, all over Great Britain, and elsewhere, are recorded, including North American families linked to England mostly from the 16th to 18th Century This collection has been one of the glories of the Society of Genealogists Library, and provides a unique source of information on whole families.

3. London City Burials

The London City Burials Index covers over 36,000 burials in 76 parishes of the City of London for the period 1813-1853. It greatly extends Boyd's London Burials, which contains details of 243,000 burials, but over a much longer period. London City Burials covers all burials - men, women and children - and nearly always shows the age.

Germany , Poland, Eastern Europe. We wrote extensively in Bulletin 46/2006 on the huge amount of genealogical data on people of German origin who were "repatriated" to Germany at the beginning of WW2. Gwen Armstrong tells us of the success she has had in adding 840 people to her tree from the fully searchable details of the EWZ files available free of charge on the www.odessa3.org site.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 21/2007

My special thanks to Gwen Armstrong who so capably produced the Bulletin whilst I was away and to James Thomson for his magnificent contributions to those Bulletins.

We are still requiring questions for The Forum. This Bulletin goes out to over 400 readers - someone out there may have the answer to your problem.

In this Bulletin

Most of us have succeeded (if that is the word) in uncovering some dark secrets from our family's past. Wait till you read about Christina Scott's rogue ancestor in News from the trenches.

See Gwen Armstrong's highly informative piece on Canadian censuses in Were you aware............(now that she's got a taste for it there's no stopping her).

Announcements

The world renowned Mormon Taberacle Choir is visiting Toronto and giving two performances, at 2.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. on Friday 22 June at Roy Thomson Hall. Tickets which range from $45 to $90 can be obtained from the Box Office at 416 872 4255.

As is our usual practice, we will be discontinuing the Tuesday evening Family History Centre session through July and August. Actual dates will be announced later.

Film Arrivals. The unusual delays that have occurred in the receipt of films ordered from Salt Lake seem to be abating. We now have just one film ordered in January that has still not been received (our special apologies to Ed Bonner) and six ordered on 26 April. All the films ordered in February and March and for the earlier April orders have now been received.

Favourite UK County Sites

Next week's county will be Norfolk . If you know of sites that are particularly useful, please send us the details.

This week's county is Staffordshire. Bulletin readers have sent us the following:

Staffordshire BMD: http://www.bmsgh.org/staffsbmd/index.html

Staffordshire Monumental Inscriptions http://www.wishful-thinking.org.uk/genuki/STS/MIs.html (Very good coverage - especially the northern parts of the county).

Films received in the 7 days ending 24 May 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 21 June 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Toronto mar 1924	1838200
CAN ON Toronto mar 1924	1838046
DEU Repatriated Germans - Brusow	1806283
DEU Rohau Civ. Reg. 1875-1881	1194896
ENG Burnt Records - Frarey, John Edw-	2148306
ENG Burnt Records - Fraser, Alexander-	2148307
ENG Burnt Records - Fraser, Alexander-	2148308
ENG Dragoon Gds Soldiers Recs 'T'	0866450
ENG GLS Bristol St James BT 1737-	1595553
ENG PCC Wills 1781	0093057
ENG STS Buxton pr 1764-1921	1278995
ENG STS Yoxall pr 1645-1900	1517739
ENG WWI burnt records Howis	2354088
IRL FER Derryvullan Census 1911	2145346
IRL Tithe App. Killyleagh-Killyglen	0258462
IRL Tithe App. McMurry-Nevill, William	1565515
NLD Amsterdam Karthuizen Bur 1745-	0114707
PHL Laguna Binan Marr 1903-1913	1658271
POL Karczew RC PR 1810-1816, 1818	0689487
POL Karczew RC PR 1817	1618645
POL Karczew RC PR 1819-1825	0689488
POL Karczew RC PR 1826-1836	0689489
POL Karczew RC PR 1836-1847	0689490
POL Karczew RC PR 1848-1857	0689491
POL Karczew RC PR 1858-1861	0689492
POL Karczew RC PR 1862-1866	0689493
POL Karczew RC PR 1866	1618658
POL Karczew RC PR 1875-1883	1618642
POL Karczew RC PR 1884-1885	1618643
POL LW St Maria Magdalena BMD 1920-1945	2034926
SCT INV Sleat PR 1813-1853	0990672
UKR L'viv St Peter & Paul D 1916-	2382507
UKR L'viv Hospitals	2329665
UKR L'viv Hospitals	2329664
UKR L'viv Hospitals D	2382879
UKR L'viv Hospitals D	2382872
UKR L'viv St George Cath. D 1862-1887	2290664
UKR L'viv St George Cath. D 1887-1903	2382868
UKR L'viv St Peter & P. BMD 1883-1927	2290949
USA SD Walworth Naturalization 1883-	1782857
WLS Wills, Admons, Inventories 1817 - 18	1657278

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

News from the trenches

Christina Scott writes: "Having researched and followed the well documented life of my 7th Great Grandfather

Jacobus Haverkamp, school master and organist in the little Dutch village of Stedum, I was searching through the Parish
records and came across the following story.

On September 14, 1707 Jacobus Havercamp was removed as elder of the church having placed his hand underneath the apron of Widow Lubbert IJwes and fondled her pregnant abdomen. He was replaced by Willem op 't Holt Backer as elder.

(The Widow had conceived a child after her husbands death.)

Jacobus was already over 75 years at the time of this incident. The life of Jacon Havercamp had been previously documented by Petronella J.C. Elema in the Netherlands in an article for a regional genealogy magazine, in which she reported the previous troublesome behaviour of my ancestor, which ranged from disturbing the peace, argument with the pastor, and land boundary disputes. On several occasions he had been barred to attend the "holy evening meal". Jacobus had 3 wives, 17 children and lived to well over one hundred years old. The Parish church council films are interesting to read, and hold volumes of information about the lives of many of our ancestors. Too bad they are not always available."

Were you aware.................

Canada . Census Data.

Until Confederation in 1867, Canada had no official national census. Since 1666 areas throughout Canada conducted their own censuses in different years. Very few of these have survived.

The census of 1871 included Ontario or Canada West, Quebec or Canada East, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. As provinces joined confederation they were included in subsequent federal census returns. Manitoba, British Columbia and PEI are in the 1881 census. Alberta and Saskatchewan did not become provinces until 1905 and a special census in 1906 was done to track population growth of the west and thus only Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are included. Newfoundland and Labrador did not become a Canadian province until 1949 and had their own census before that.

The 1851 Census was not completed until 1852 and covered:

Ontario or Canada West (sometimes referred to as English Canada)

Quebec or Canada East (sometimes referred to as French Canada)

New Brunswick

Nova Scotia (head of household only)

Quebec Census returns before 1851 are rarely complete for any geographical area and most list only the head of each household. Note that some portions of the 1851 Census have not survived – and as some were not done until 1852 it is wise to check the title page to see the date the enumerator did it. This is important when calculating birth dates etc. In 1851 question was age at next birthday.

If the place you are researching does not appear in the database, it is usually because it was a smaller town or village that was not enumerated separately. Those places were enumerated within the surrounding area, depending on how the province was divided at the time. In Ontario, the sub-districts usually correspond with townships; in New Brunswick, with parishes; in Manitoba, with rural municipalities; in Quebec, with townships and parishes; in Prince Edward Island, with Lots. There was no standardized system for the division of Nova Scotia and the districts west of Manitoba.

Availability

1851

fully indexed with images available by subscription available at www.ancestry.ca
Missing from the 1851 Census: Quebec – Shefford and Stanstead counties; Ontario – Russell and Simcoe counties; New Brunswick – Gloucester, Kent and Queens counties; Nova Scotia – all except Halifax and Kings

1861

no national index

1871

Ontario head of household index available http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/020108_e.html

1881

fully indexed without images available at www.familysearch.org

1891

no national index available (image films available at Toronto FHC)

1901

fully indexed with images available by subscription available at www.ancestry.ca
fully indexes with images available free at www.automatedgenealogy.com

1911

fully indexed with images available by subscription available at www.ancestry.ca
fully indexes with images available free at www.automatedgenealogy.com

There are many communities available online for links to the websites try:

http://www.censusfinder.com/canada-census-records.htm

http://www.census-online.com/links/Canada/

http://www.islandnet.com/~jveinot/cghl/census.html

National Archives of Canada film numbers for Census Returns on Microfilm, 1666 – 1901

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/020121_e.html

You can read about the history of the Canadian Census at: http://www.statcan.ca/english/census96/history.htm

Lists questions asked in census:

http://simmons.b2b2c.ca/CENSINFO.HTM

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/censusq.htm

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 20/2007

Peter is still away and your substitute Bulletin editor is still hard at work. Hardly working?

In this Bulletin

Changes at familysearch.org – see James Thomson’s update in Announcements….
Lots of new information available on line – see James and Linda’s comments in Were You Aware….
A program to help you with your transcribing project – see Were You Aware….

Announcements

James Thomson writes: "A brief word about some announcements made recently:

1. Family History Centres: In the past few days, there have been, as you may have seen reported by Dick Eastman (www.eogn.com) or on the news releases page of the FamilySearch site (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/News/frameset_news.asp?PAGE=home_press.asp ) or elsewhere, many announcements respecting changes planned for the FamilySearch site and respecting resources which will be newly and freely available through the Family History Centres. There's a great deal to look forward to as an FHC patron, both in terms of what has been announced to date and in terms of what is yet to come! So perhaps the best and most concise thing to say at this point is: watch this space, for announcements of new resources as they are made available at the Toronto FHC and other new developments as they occur.

2. Toronto Reference Library: Anyone engaged in family history research in Toronto is likely to make use of or at least know of the excellent and growing collections of the Toronto Reference Library (TRL) --- not only the genealogy collection in the Special Collections, Genealogy and Maps Centre on the 4th floor but also the complementary collections of interest to us (and conveniently available under one roof), including newspapers, current and historical periodicals and society publications, maps, directories, dictionaries, biographies, the Baldwin Room collections, and all manner of works of social history or local history or military history etc. etc. The TRL has announced that it is holding a "Community Open House" to discuss certain renovation plans; this will be held in the Asquith Room (2nd floor of the TRL) on Tuesday June 5th from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. The TRL is at 789 Yonge Street, on the east side of Yonge one short block north of Bloor. The nearest subway station is Bloor/Yonge."

News from the Trenches

From Linda Reid:- The first item on the film of baptisms for Arbroath, Scotland that is now in the FHC (0993332) is:
" William Leslie natural son of Isabel Leslie and Pompy Black Servant to Capt. James Bruce was born the 9th Jany 1781 and bapized [sic] the 12 said Month Witnesses Robert Kerr, Thomas Gimmell, Margaret Allan." I guess the paternity of this child was fairly obvious.

The Forum

New questions always needed. Send us details of your brick wall; perhaps another reader has the answer you have been searching for.

Answers to previous questions:

Q1/18/2007 England/Canada . How long would it take to cross the ocean in a sailing ship in 1854? Margaret Taylor writes:- “My husband's gt aunt sailed May 6 1856 from Liverpool to New York, U.S.A. on the "Emerald Isle" - a fully rigged schooner (definition-A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel having at least two masts, with a foremast that is usually smaller than the other masts). The ship arrived New York 8 June 1856. Another ancestor sailed from Liverpool May 28 1852, landing in New York June 28 1852. Both voyages taking a month, so I would assume an 1854 voyage to Canada would be a very similar length”

Favourite UK County Sites

With our esteemed bulletin editor away, it is up to the assistant to make an informed and well thought out decision as to which county should be highlighted next week. So I threw a dart at the map and it landed on Staffordshire.

Kindly send us your favourite sites.

Wiltshire sites as recommended by our readers:-

http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/heritage/ - Wiltshire wills ---many that can be viewed free right on the site. I found some dandies for my family. Also includes other counties.

www.wiltshirebmd.org.uk - for, Trowbridge, Calne, Chippenham, Corsham, Malmesbury

http://www.burbage-wiltshire.co.uk/burbageindex.html - emphasis on Burbage

Films received in the 7 days ending 17 May 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 14 Jun 2007.

Film Content	Film No
DEU BAY Bellenburg PR 1720-1900	1978837
DEU Repatriated Germans - Berg	1806191
ENG 4th Reg foot 1760-1854	0864786
ENG LIN Grantham BTs 1701-1859	0432510
IRL LDY Artrea C'stle Dawson Cens 1911	1840351
NLD Amsterdam citizen bks 1788-1811	0114932
POL Bodzanow Jewish BMD 1851-1865	0729203
POL Drobin Jewish BMD 1826-1846	0729204
POL Drobin Jewish BMD 1826-1887	1201496
POL Leczyca Jewish BMD 1817-8,1824	0767130
POL Wyszogrod Jewish BMD 1859-1865	0730210
POL Zuromin Jewish BMD 1846-1865	0702525
UKR Krzwcza Met Bks 1785-1889	2380081
UKR L'viv PR Vol 201 2241-9	2202515
UKR Zlotniki PR 1753-1944	2329212

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.

Were you aware...............

· James Thomson writes: "Readers might be interested in a number of new developments:

1. Ireland : Last week, the Irish Family History Foundation, which coordinates the county-based genealogical research centres in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, signed an agreement with a technology company to launch pay-per-use online access to the databases held by the centres: http://www.irish-roots.net/view-details.asp?NewsID=66. Note the last few lines of the announcement: "This is the most exciting development in Irish genealogy since the county centres began indexing records in the late 1980s. The first centres will be online later this month. Watch this space for further information. Please sign up to our mailing list if you wish to be advised when new data is added to the pay Per View system." A suggestion: in the meantime, don't overlook certain existing online indexes comprising the Central Signposting Index: http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/csi/csi_main.cfm. Two other examples of the same type (in that they are the product of bodies which have been part of the same program) are DublinHeritage.ie (limited data) (http://www.dublinheritage.ie/) and the databases of the Ulster Historical Foundation (Antrim and Down): http://www.ancestryireland.com/database.php .

2. England and Wales: The National Archives (TNA) at Kew ( London) has just uploaded a new resource to DocumentsOnline: Southwell Workhouse and Poor Law Union Papers. Southwell Workhouse, in northern Nottinghamshire, is a National Trust property and is of unique interest as being the "best preserved" of the Victorian workhouses which were established pursuant to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. As with other DocumentsOnline databases, one can freely explore the highly useful background information on the site, and can freely search the index, but in this case one can view the digital images of documents free of charge as well. More information is found at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/160.htm?homepage=news and http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/workhouse.asp. Permit me to make two suggestions. First, in addition to exploring the excellent TNA research guides to which there are hyperlinks in the "Further Information" section of the second webpage, above, do explore the excellent website www.workhouses.org which surveys workhouses (poorhouses in Scotland), and the Victorian systems of poor relief, throughout the British Isles. Second, note that the "Further Information" section also recommends articles in the TNA magazine Ancestors; the Toronto Reference Library (see above) now has a subscription to Ancestors and has acquired almost all the back issues -- current and back issues are available through the Periodicals Centre on the 4th floor.

3. British Isles: The University of Toronto has fairly recently subscribed to the online database The Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985 (fully-searchable text and digital images of the final editions of The Times of London) and has extended its subscription to the online database [British] House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (fully-searchable text and digital images) so as to include the twentieth century as well as the nineteenth."

England , London . Linda Reid draws our attention to New Data - City of London Burials 1788-1855. Searching for burials in London is never easy and the problem is worse in the City of London itself, where there were 98 churches within the so-called 'Square Mile', or historic core of the city. Exclusive to Findmypast.com, an estimated 292,000 of these carefully transcribed records are now available online for the very first time.

The URL is http://www.findmypast.com/lbSearchStart.action?redef=0

Transcribing . For those of you that do a lot of transcribing, Christina Scott recommends this program that is available as freeware.

http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm

‘It is a transcript program – you can load the image to the upper half of the program and transcribe in the lower. I have used it for years, works well.”

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 19/2007

Peter is away this week and a substitute Bulletin editor has been drafted. She is very grateful to James, Margaret and others for their input.

In this Bulletin

Dade Registers in Yorkshire – see Were You Aware...

Announcements

James Thomson writes: "A brief word about two helpful resources for British Isles family history research which have come online in the past week:

1. Scotland : Digital images of entries in the Register of Corrected Entries (RCE), linked to the original entries in the statutory (1855+) registers of births/marriages/deaths which they correct, have just been added to ScotlandsPeople (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/). A description of the RCE is available at:

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?1314

Viewing the RCE entry is charged at two (2) credits per entry; this is additional to the five (5) credits required to view the original entry. If an RCE entry is available in connection with the original entry, this is indicated by the appearance of an additional red button on the results screen, bearing the words "View RCE (2 credits)".

With respect to an image of an original entry which one had viewed (at five (5) credits) before the release of the RCE images, but which may in fact have a corresponding RCE entry, log in to ScotlandsPeople, click on "Viewed Images", call up the image of the original entry, and note whether a red button, as described above, now appears above the image. If it does, one can view the RCE entry for the additional two (2) credits, without having to pay for the original entry again.

2. England and Wales: Data for the year 2005 has been added to Ancestry's indexes to post-1983 vital events registered in England and Wales, as reported to the General Register Office:

Births: http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8782

Marriages: http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8753

Deaths: http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=7579

These particular databases are freely searchable, upon registration, from home or from the Family History Centres or elsewhere, and are included in AncestryLibraryEdition, which is freely available to all Toronto Public Library (TPL) cardholders at all TPL branches."

Permanent Collections

We have added 6 new films to our permanent collection:

1476492, 1476493,1476494,1476495,1476496,1476497

These films contain the Christian Fiess Collection. For those of you researching Germans From Russia you will recognize the name. For the rest of us, these films contain copies of original documents, pedigrees, and other certificates of migration, emigration and documentation for those leaving Bessarabia and entering Germany, 1940-1941.

A searchable surname index can be found at http://www.odessa3.org/collections/bess/fiess/ as well as a complete description of the films.

News from the trenches

Gwen Armstrong writes:-
”I have been fortunate enough to find records of my family in the Christian Fiess Collection. Including a marriage record of a direct ancestor and a handwritten pedigree chart that goes back 7 generations! The pedigree chart gave me the names of the original settlers in Russia, their exact birth dates, and the village in Germany where they were born. Now if only I could read German…"

The Forum

New Questions

Q1/18/2007 England/Canada . In 1853 Robert & Charlotte Carter were married in East Yorkshire England and set sail for Canada in 1854. It was told to me by my mother that her grandmother Charlotte ‘suffered greatly’ during the crossing in a very turbulent ocean. Charlotte Carter swore that she would never again set foot on a sailing ship. How long would it take to cross the ocean in a sailing ship in 1854?

Favourite UK County Sites

We could still use a few more sites for Wiltshire so we are extending our request another week. Please send us details of the sites you find useful outlining what can be found on those sites.

Films received in the 7 days ending 10 May 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 7 Jun 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN PQ Sorel C of E pr 1784-1842	1430819
ENG Burnt Records - Jones, Thomas J-K	2300817
ENG MDX London All H'lows mun'ts 1500-	1966259
ENG SOM Kingston PR 1715-1897	1526663
ENG STS Buxton pr 1764-1921	1278996
ENG WOR Kidderminster mar 1767-	0435263
ENG YKS Almondbury BT's 1774-1814	0990854
ENG YKS Marsden Cong.PR 1796-1911	1657363
ESP Segovia Turegamo b 1864-1927	1387733
IND Bengal BMB Jan-Mar 1928	0463389
IRL census index McShane/Johnson only	0824240
IRL Tithe App. Seapatrick-Tamlaght O'C	0258468
Patron ordinance submission forms	1553589
POL LU Chelm Jewish BMD 1932-33	0702691
POL LU Chelm Jewish BMD 1934	0702692
POL Zamosc RC PR 1781-1787	0904334
POL Zamosc RC PR 1786-1826	1980399
PRU WPRU Simkau Civ Reg 1874-1879	1194910
UKR Borszczow CR Births 1847-1902	2125359
UKR L'viv BMD 1821-1870	2290937
UKR L'viv BMD 1861-1877	2290938
UKR L'viv BMD 1881-1905	2290939
UKR L'viv BMD 1884-1896	2291019
UKR L'viv BMD 1886-1900	2289637
UKR L'viv BMD 1896-1920	2289638
UKR L'viv BMD 1903-1914	2290934
UKR L'viv BMD 1906-1926	2290940
UKR L'viv BMD 1913-1940	2290935
UKR L'viv Dormition Ch. BMD 1885-1898	2290910
UKR L'viv Dormition Ch. BMD 1899-1908	2290911
UKR L'viv Dormition Ch. D 1876-1902	2382866
UKR L'viv Hospitals	2329663
UKR L'viv Hospitals 1833-1888	2329662
USA MO Dec. of Intentions 1916-1917	1749650
USA NY New York Dth Indx 1905-1908	1324915
USA NY New York Dth Indx 1918-1921	1324918
USA NY New York Marr Indx 1906-1909	1653855
USA NY New York Marr Indx 1910-1913	1543903

A patron wishing to view a film ordered by another patron should check first with staff. The patron who ordered the film will always have priority.
Any patron may renew a film ordered by another patron although the original patron's name will continue to appear on the label. The description of the film given above may not be a full description. A film number search in the Family History Library Catalog will reveal the full content of the film. The geographical abbreviations used above are based on the Chapman codes

Were you aware...............

Margaret Taylor writes:-

“In Yorkshire some parishes were extremely lucky in having what were called DADE REGISTERS, named after the Rev William Dade, vicar of several Yorkshire parishes, who instituted a system of giving substantially more information than normal. If you come across these they are a gold mine, since they usually give in a baptismal entry not only the name of the father but the mother's name, father's occupation, and the names of both grandfathers and parishes of residence, thus taking you back another generation and to other places. In 1812 a further new system was introduced extending the amount of information given but, ironically, giving less information than had previously occurred under Dade Registers. There is no overall guide to which parishes had Dade Registers but you will certainly know them when you see them.

Finally, if you want to know what parish had what registers you really should obtain one of two books - Yorkshire Parish Registers by Colin Blanshard Withers, which covers all Anglican parishes in Yorkshire with full details of when the registers begin, where the originals are held and what copies exist; or the National Index of Parish Registers, Volume 11 Parts 2 and 3, published by the Society of Genealogists (in two volumes, one covering the North and East Ridings and the other, Part 3, the West Riding). The NIPR gives details of not only Anglican churches but Catholic and Nonconformist as well. These books also list Yorkshire Record Offices (of which there are many). “

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 18/2007

Another fine response from readers giving us details of their favourite Lancashire sites. Next week the county will be Wiltshire.

In this Bulletin

Your chance to influence our future permanent collection holdings- see Permanent Collections

Announcements.

Outstanding Film Orders. Despite the arrival this week of a large number of films (see below) we are still waiting for 9 films ordered in January, 2 in February and 5 in March. We will do all we can to speed these up and meanwhile apologise for the inconvenience to our patrons.

Permanent Collections

From time to time, thanks to generous donations received from our ever generous patrons, we are able to make significant additions to our permanent collections. That time has arrived. The material can be in the form of microfilm, microfiche, CDs/DVDs or books but it must have fairly widespead appeal and must not already be, or likely to be soon, on-line and preferably not something readily available elsewhere in Toronto. We would like suggestions from readers of the Bulletin as to what they would like the Toronto Family History Centre to hold. Our present collections tend to be biased toward the UK and this represents the interests of a large number of our patrons but this may be a chicken and egg situation - maybe we would attract larger numbers of members of other communities if our collections covered their interests. So please, let us have your suggestions.

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions.

Q1/17/2007. England. Re. Edmund George Benson "late Captain of the Royal Wiltshire Militia". We think that your best chance of unravelling this is to consult LDS film 0917276 which contains the Records of Officers Services for the Royal Wiltshire Regiment of Militia from 1835 to 1893.

Q2/17/2007. England. Re. the disappearance after WW1 of Ernest Joseph Gloster. We think that you should firstly search for his death past 1962 when he would still have been only 81 years old. About 7% of the male population were living beyond that age at that time. We have entertained the idea (as we feel sure you have) that he emigrated and have searched the 1920 and 1930 censuses of the USA, the Ellis Island immigration, the SSI death index, Ontario marriages and deaths, Manitoba deaths, B.C. marriages and deaths and New South Wales marriages and deaths, without success.

Q3/17/2007. England. Re. John and William Axford who were in Parkhurst Prison in 1841, transported to New Zealand in 1842 and subsequently returned to England. What was their offence? The records of Parkhurst prisoners for the period 1838 to 1875 are held at the UK National Archives in the HO24/1 series. These would normally give the details of their offence, the date of their conviction and sentence, their occupation, character, state of health and physical characteristics. Since they were 17 and 15 and unmarried their father's name might also appear. Details can be found on www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/ifa_15_tracingc18toc20_criminals_sk.pdf The bad news is that for the National Archives to do the search the charge is £60 but you might well be able to find a private researcher to do the job more cheaply.

Q4/17/2007. England. Re. Henry Scatchard, a plumber and glazier, said to have created a stained glass window in a Leeds church, can I search for him in occupation records? The combination of plumber and glazier is a common one since both trades required a skill of working with lead but we know of no records of these trades. To pursue the idea that he might have been responsible for the stained glass window you could try parish chest records to see if their is any record of a payment to him but there is always the possibility that the window was donated and payment to Mr Scatchard was made by the donor.

Favourite UK County Sites

The county for next week will be Wiltshire. Please send us details of the sites you fine useful outlining what can be found on those sites.

This week's county is Lancashire. Here are the contributions from a number of readers (we have eliminated duplicates).

www.boothstown.com an excellent site about a village west of Salford

www.worsley.history.btinternet.co.uk Worsley, a village south of Manchester- historical connections to the Duke of Bridgewater and the Bridgewater Canal

www.Manchesteronline.co.uk Daily newspaper internet site

www.manchesterhistory.net/longsight an area of Manchester - links to Belle Vue

www.lancashire.gov.uk/educationrecord_office Lancashire archives

www.churches-online.org.uk/salfordarchives/ Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford,Lancs

www.sthelenschat.co.uk history information

www.mlfhs.org.uk Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society web site--a good bookshop

www.lan-opc.org.uk/ The OnLine Parish Clerks' Project. An online parish clerk is a volunteer transcribing records from parishes in a specific area. Lancashire records include parish registers, cemetery records, directories, churchwardens' accounts and others. There are links to other Lancashire sites.
www.aol.com/gayjoliver/Tameside.htm Gay Oliver's website. Gay's site deals mainly with Ashton-under-Lyne and the Tameside area of south-east Lancashire, but there are many, many links to genealogy and history sites of both local and general interest. It's very comprehensive. There are some transcribed records online, e.g. the 1811 census of Ashton-under-Lyne.
www.briercliffesociety.co.uk/ The Briercliffe Society.This is a new site, started in March, relating to the Briercliife area near
Burnley in north-east Lancashire. Already, there are some transcribed records, e.g. wills, parish records, census, plus names of interest and queries, and histories of old houses in the area, on the site. There are some links to other local sites.
www.lancs-lookup.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Lancashire Look-up Exchange. Volunteers will look up specific names in local records, including census records, some parish registers, directories, Monumental Inscriptions, and references in some books. There are links to other Lancashire sites.

www.interment.net/uk/eng/lancashire.htm part of the Interment.net series of sites – growing – cemetery indexes – volunteer transcribers.

http://cheshirebmd.org.uk/ Part of the local bmd sites – please note that all records for Ashton-under-Lyne are on this site rather than the Lancs BMD site – confusing I know!

www.tameside.gov.uk/localstudies/ Great site – search the image archives

www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/ Almost 5 million records. – Oldham includes Saddleworth, which before 1974 was in Yorkshire but originally part of Rochdale Parish – another confusing fact.

www.xmission.com/~nelsonb/lws.htm Lancashire Will Search – nearly a quarter of a million records. 16th to early 19th Century.

www.manchester.gov.uk/libraries/arls/registers/index.htm Lots of amazing information, plus searchable photo archives and listings of holdings.

www.ancestordocs.co.uk/Lancashire.htmPart of Beryl Anderson’s historical documents for sale – check back often. www.google.co.uk/books?id=9cgRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=Lancashire Google Books – type in Lancashire <enter> and you’re set for the whole day – including Tim Bobbin:-

http://members.pcug.org.au/~pfthomps/lancshis/lancsint.htm If you’re interested in Lancashire dialect, this will either clear up confusion, or confuse you even more

www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/ Interesting Merseyside items from old newspapers

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/place.asp?gid=20&region=6 History of Lancashire

http://crem.oltps.sthelens.gov.uk:8080/crem/servlet/Telesearch#results St Helens area, local cemetery records

http://www.sthelens-connect.net/forums/index.php?s=a9504cfedca6d8f021f4111d6949397b&showforum=244 St Helens area. The Local History section of the St Helens Connect site has free downloads of parish records and census indexes for the area.

Films received in the 7 days ending 3 May 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 31 May 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Newmarket RC PR 1849-1910	1305825
CAN ON Parry Sound mar 1924	2393910
DEU Budwethen Baptisms 1772-1796	1813537
DEU Emigration Card File 1782-1784	1327507
DEU Rohau Civ. Reg. 1874	1194895
DEU SCI Brieg Evang. B 1792-1803	0879605
ENG CON Paul PR 1595-1812	0226178
ENG CON Paul PR Bapt 1813-1959	0226179
ENG DEV Hartland Hdrd Land Tax 1798	1526151
ENG DEV Stoke Damerel PR 1595-1782	0916921
ENG DEV Stoke Damerel PR 1765-1786	0916919
ENG DUR Gateshead b 1763	0252780
ENG LAN Ashton-in-Makerfield PR 1698-	1885657
ENG LDN Grocers Co Records 1345-1881	1850737
ENG MIL RECs 1914-20 Jaques	2300237
ENG MIL RECs 1914-20 Moores James	2324152
ENG MIL RECs 1914-20 Moores P-T	2324153
ENG NFK Archdeaconry Wills 1710-1712	0167144
ENG SFK Stoke-Ash PRs Transcripts	0992048
ENG WAR Bordesley PR Bapt 1889-	1520101
ENG WOR Tenbury BTs 1813-1860	0992549
ENG YKS Otley BT 1774-1826	0918401
ENG YKS Otley BT 1848-1897	1849387
FRA BAS Hatten births 1793-1815	0731410
IND Bengal pr vol 83-4, 1853	0498991
IOM Douglas St Barnabas C of E 1833-	0106716
IRL Civ. Reg Marriages 1845	0101271
IRL DON Carricknahorna Census 1911	2080824
IRL FER Derryvullan Census 1901	0836122
ITA Provincia Civil Recs 1902-1903	1802008
ITA Provincia Civil Recs 1903-1904	1802009
NLD Amsterdam Immigrants 1820-1851	0493665
NLD Amsterdam Karthuizen Bur 1758-	0114709
NLD Ancestral Research Netherlands	0845093
NLD Medemblik Ch Memb 1698-1800	0516576
NLD Medemblik Ref Ch Bapt 1750-1805	0115812
PHL Megcauagan Deaths 1907-1915	1128529
PHL Megcauagan Deaths 1915-1933	1128530
PHL Pangasthan S'Barb Bapt 1860-73	1128949
PHL Tagudin Baptisms 1843-1858	1214470
POL Karczew RC PR 1866-1875	1618641
POL Nowa Weis Gk Cath PR 1784-1941	1979587
POL TP Chorostkow RC PR 1818-1945	2005223
RUS BES Fiess Collection #1-1971	1476492
RUS BES Fiess Collection #1972-3541	1476493
RUS BES Fiess Collection #3542-5192	1476494
RUS BES Fiess Collection #5193-6900	1476495
RUS BES Fiess Collection #6901-8270	1476496
RUS BES Fiess Collection #8271-9351	1476497
RUS BES Karlswalde Luth. Ch. Bks 1885	1897692
SCT ANS Arbroath Bap 1781-1819	0993332

News from the trenches

Joan Challis writes:-
"I've been waiting quite a long time for a WW1 Burnt Records film to arrive -but it was well worth the wait. My husband's grandfather's service record was on the film which not only showed all the details of his service - including when he was disciplined for leaving the base without permission - but also details of his marriage and the births of his children. We always
thought he had two children but it turns out he had three, one dying at the age of 6 months and the child's death certificate formed part of the record."

Were you aware...............

Genealogy generally. Probate and Administrations. (this latter sometimes called, for reasons unknown to me "admons").

Requirements vary slightly from one jurisdiction to another but generally speaking when somebody dies leaving assets owned in their name (bank accounts, real estate, vehicles etc) it is necessary to get an order from a court giving permission to a relative, a solicitor, a bank, a creditor, to deal with the estate and to transfer ownership to a rightful claimant. Where the deceased leaves a will and names in the will an executor (or executors) those persons would normally obtain the court's consent - a Grant of Representation - to deal with the estate. This is a Grant of Probate. If the deceased did not leave a will or the will was invalid or if the executors named in the will were unwilling or unable to act, other persons may apply to act as the executor for the estate and if granted this would be a Grant of Administration. There seems to be a popular misconception that a will does not exist where a Grant of Administration has been made but this is not necessarily the case. Of course, it is also possible for someone to leave a will but no grant of probate or administration is made but this would only be possible if the decedant had constructed their affairs so that no assets remained in their sole name at the time of their death. This is done to avoid Death Duties and Probate Fees but in that event there is no court to fall back on since technically the deceased did not own anything when they died.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 17/2007

Our grateful thanks to all those readers of the Bulletin who have responded so admirably with more questions for The Forum and for the submissions to the new feature Favourite UK County Sites. We need to keep this going - submissions required for next week's county, Lancashire.

In this Bulletin

Some great new questions in The Forum. Your input needed.
We tackle a really hot subject in Were you aware..............

Announcements

A few more films dribbled in this week from orders which we placed in January but we regret that there are still some that have not yet arrived from an order placed by us on 11 January.

The Forum

New Questions

Q1/17/2007. England. In 1870 Edmund George Benson married Albertina Coombes in London. In 1877 Albertina died, age 32, of chronic liver disease but the informant was her aunt. Albertina was described on the death certificate as "wife of Edmund George Benson, late Captain of the Royal Wiltshire Militia" which could be read as meaning that Edmund was deceased or that he was no longer a Captain in the Royal Wiltshire Militia. However, I have been unable to find his death between 1870 and 1877 and there is no trace of him in any subsequent census. How do I find out what happened to him?
Q2/17/2007. England. Ernest Joseph Gloster was born in Solihull, Warwickshire on April 10, 1881. In 1902 he married Lilian May Roberts and they had 6 children but when he returned from WW1 Lilian had left the children in the care of her mother and gone to live with a Patrick Mulry (Mulroy). Ernest left the children with Lilian's mother and then disappears. When Lilian died in 1942 as "Lilian Gloster otherwise Mulroy the wife of Joseph Gloster". I have searched for his death as Ernest or Joseph and with variations of the spelling of Gloster from 1920 to 1962 without success. Any ideas?
Q3/17/2007. England. I believe I am related to two boys, John and William Axford, who appear in the 1841 Census age 17 and 15 in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. At the time there was a scheme to send juvenile offenders to Australia and New Zealand to complete their sentences and these two were sent to New Zealand arriving 25 October 1842. They returned to England and in 1851are living with their parents. How do I find out what offence they committed that saw them sent to Parkhurst?
Q4/17/2007. England. I am trying to find more about Henry Scatchard my aunt's great-grandfather. I wonder if I can trace him through his occupation. I have traced him in the 1841-1871 census. He died in 1880. In 1851 he was 19 living with his parents in Ollerton, Nottingshire and is listed as a 'Plumber & Glazier'. In 1861 he was married and living in Eckington Derbyshire and was a Plumber, Journeyman. In 1871 he lived in Wortley, (Leeds) Yorkshire and was listed as a plumber.
My Aunt understands he created a stained glass window for a Church in Leeds. Plumber and Glazier do not sound like related occupations. Can I search for him through occupation records?

Favourite UK County Sites

The county for next week will be Lancashire . Send it details of your favourite sites giving details of what can be found on these sites.

This week's county is Yorkshire . A number of readers have sent in details (we have eliminated duplicates) and give here what those readers describe:-

www.simplesite.com/Keighleyhistory/2944508 The site covers the Keighley area of West Yorkshire with many small tidbits of interest; included are old photos of people and places as well as recent pictures of this lovely area. There is a link to Keighley BMDs, Brigg Burial Ground (with pictures of some of the tombstones) and the Keighley Workhouse

http://www.driffield.org.uk/index.html Driffield. It has lists of people from local Directories, BMD from the local churches, history, stories about local people etc.
http://www.calverley.info /. Calverley and area. This is a marvelous site with church records, census records, trade directories, maps, war memorials, news items, schools, wills, voters lists, history, constables, etc.
www.familia.org.uk/services/england/kingston_upon_hull.html Kingston upon Hull. Hull also has a city genealogist on staff.

http://www.yorkshirebmd.org.uk Yorkshire BMD.

And a whole lot of sites given without description (but the URL gives a good idea of what they might contain).
http://www.sheffieldrecordsonline.org.uk/
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ENG-SHEFFIELD
http://www.gleadless.net/pages/other/streets.htm
http://extra.shu.ac.uk/sfca/
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~engsheffield/
http://www.gencem.org/resources.html#edresources
http://www.sheffieldfhs.org.uk/
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/YKSlist/yks.htm

Films received in the 7 days ending 26 April 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 24 May 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Peterboro' Co Marriages 1923	2266931
CAN ON Richmond St Philip RC pr	1304679
CAN ON Simcoe Co. Marriages 1924	2393912
CAN ON Stormont Co. Marriages 1924	2393913
CAN ON Victoria Co. Marriages 1924	2393914
ENG Burnt Records - Jones, Thomas	2300828
ENG GLS Hanham PRs	1849449
ENG MDX Islington Banns 1827-1853	2232195
IND Bengal BMB Apr/Jun 1921	0527926
IND Bengal BMB Jan-Mar 1936	0528998
IND Bengal BMB Jul-Sep 1906	0527536
IND Bengal BMB July/Sept 1921	0527927
IND Bengal BMB Oct-Dec 1913	0527902
ITL Udine San Vito Al Tagliamento PR	2163742
ITL Udine San Vito Al Tagliamento PR	2163741
ITL Udine San Vito Al Tagliamento PR	2163740
POL Krasnik Jewish Births 1826-1849	0715440
POL Krasnik Jewish Deaths 1847-1865	0715444
POL Krasnik Jewish Marr 1826-1865	0715442
POL Wielkie Oczy CR 1784-1875	2380058
RUS BES Kishinev Lutheran B 1909-19	2161881
RUS BES Kishinev Lutheran M 1892-	2161884
SCT DFS Tundergarth PR 1791-1854	1067971
SCT DFS Wamphray PR 1709-1854	1067972

Were you aware...................

Canada /United Kingdom/ United States. Trying to find out where someone was buried? As cremation becomes more and more popular the chances increase that they were not buried at all but that their ashes were disposed of to places unknown. Many crematoria in the United Kingdom have attached to them what are called "Gardens of Remembrance" where the ashes of the deceased are said to be scattered although it occurs to me that if they are then it can only be a token amount since otherwise the garden would soon become prone to ash storms at the slightest gust. My late wife's ashes are buried in the village churchyard but there is no stone to mark the spot the minister explaining to me that if this were allowed the churchyard would soon become paved over like a parking lot. But just how prevalent is cremation becoming?

Here are some statistics. Percentage of all deaths:

United Kingdom

1900 0.1%

1930 0.9%

1950 15.6%

1970 55.4%

1990 69.6%

2004 72.2%

Canada

1930 0.5%

1950 1.9%

1970 5.9%

1990 32.5%

2004 56.0%

USA

1950 4.0%

1970 4.6%

1990 17.1%

2001 26.9%

One wonders how much longer the practice of embalming a body so that it looks nice for a few hours in a funeral home is going to be allowed to continue. The principal embalming fluid is formaldehyde, a Class 1 carcinogen and when the body is consigned to the ground it seems inevitable that the fluid must find its way to a water course. Cemeteries are currently exempt from the provisions of the Enviromental Protection Act. And no doubt the popularity of cremation is being encouraged when the relatives of the dear departed discover that the cost of a modest casket to be lowered into the ground starts at about $8,000.

Canada , Ontario. Sue Gest draws our attention to a site http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/CountyAtlas/ which contains the maps of 40 Ontario counties published between 1874 and 1881. The maps show property owners names (but not all the owners of property within the county) and these names can be searched.
Scotland . Indexes (but not images) of all the censuses of Scotland 1841 to 1901 are now available on www.ancestry.com (can be viewed on Computer No. 1 at the Toronto FHC).
Scotland , Aberdeenshire. A new genealogy centre is opening in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to be hosted in the Arbuthnot Museum. It will hold tax records dating to the 1690s, burial records dating from 1841, and registrars' birth, marriage, and death records dating from 1855. An article on the new centre can be read at:
http://www.buchanie.co.uk/archived/2007/week_16/news/genealogy.asp
Australia , Queensland . Births, marriages and deaths 1829-1914 are now on-line at http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/bdm/IndexSearch.htm (I am indebted to RootsWeb Review for this and the piece on Aberdeenshire above).

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 16/2007

We need some more questions for The Forum. Experience seems to suggest that long involved questions do not get answered - better to keep them short and then, if necessary, follow up with another question.

In this Bulletin

A book give-away in Announcements
We burrow into Australian genealogical resources in Were you aware
Favourite UK County web-sites. A feature for future Bulletins in Announcements

Announcements

Every now and again we have to weed out little used books from our collection to make room for those that might enjoy greater usage. The following are offered free to anyone who wants them - if not taken they will finish up in the recycling bin. 1. World Conference on Records 1980. 14 volumes. Two volumes are devoted to North American Family and Local History, two volumes to British, one to Scandinavian, one to Australasia, one to Latin America, one to Continental Europe and so on. You can be selective, you don't have to take the lot. 2. The History Magazine. Two volumes. Vol.1 covers October 1999 to September 2000, Vol. 3 covers October 2001 to September 2002. 3. The Olschwanger Journal. 4. The Plantagenet Connection. 5. Jefferson-Hemings. A Special Issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. This contains a lengthy review of the evidence that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings.
Gwen Armstrong has come forward with the idea that we include in future Bulletins a feature where members of staff and readers of the Bulletin give details of their favourite website covering a particular UK county describing what can be found on that site. Although we might combine some of the smaller counties, we will announce each week the county to be covered the following week. So next week we will start with Yorkshire . Come on you tykes write-in and tell us your secrets.

Films received in the 7 days ending 19 April 2007, due to return (unless renewed) 17 May 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN British Forces Recs J-K	1711862
CAN ON Kemptville Cath PR 1844-1910	1302005
CAN ON Kemptville Cath PR 1844-1910	1302004
CAN ON Kent County marriages 1924	1838207
DEU PRE Tilsit deaths 1853-1871	1813540
ENG 93'd Reg of Foot O-S	0861706
FRA HRN Colmar PR C 1650-1723	0729827
PHL Meycauagan Bulacan Bapt 1919	1128525
PHL Meycauagan Bulacan Bapt 1928-	1128526
POL LU Ratoszyn Catholic PR 1811-24	0753339
POL LU Ratoszyn Catholic PR 1825-29	0753340
POL LU Ratoszyn Catholic PR 1850-65	0753341
SCT CAI Thurso PR 1671-1854	0990556
UKR Bruckenthal BMD 1804-1862	2328797

Were you aware...............

Australia . RootsWeb Review reports on an interesting development by the National Archives of Australia - who I wouldn't describe as being in the vanguard of making records available - offering a service where anyone can request the digitization of any of their publicly available records which is done at a reasonable cost ($16.50 for a file of up to 100 pages) and once digitized the record becomes available on-line for all to access. Seems a good way to get the funding to speed up the process. Full details of the service can be seen at http://www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/digitisation-service.html A good number of records are already available (not by the digitization on-demand programme) including the service records of 366,000 Australians who served in WW1. These are described by the National Archives as their "gift to the nation". Strange wording. I would have thought that the records belonged to the nation anyway and presumably their availability on line was at the cost of the Australian tax payer. Bit like somebody borrowing something from you, giving it back as a birthday present and handing you a bill. Nonetheless, these are valuable records and can be accessed at http://www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/gift-to-the-nation.html
By going to http://www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/recordsearch.html one can search the 18.2 million records that are already on line. The site seems very busy and despite several tries I have been unable to complete an actual search. Having put in a name you are offered various types of records that are available:- Immigration and Naturalization records, High Court Cases, Court Martial Records, Passengers arriving Fremantle 1926-1946, Army Personnel Records 1901-1976, Navy 1911-1976, Air Force 1921-1976 etc. (In Bulletin 14/2007 we drew your attention to the Australian sites where details of immigrants to Australia under the assisted immigration schemes could be found. Those arriving in New South Wales 1839-1896 are shown on http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/indexes_online_3357.asp . Arriving in Victoria, Australia between 1839 and 1871 are shown on http://proarchives.imagineering.com.au/index_search.asp?searchid=24 .

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 14/2007

In this Bulletin

Easter Closing, the Ancestry.com situation and delays in film arrivals in Announcements
Another inspiring story in News from the trenches
The Story of The Petworth Experiment and news of new databases in Were you aware............

Announcements

Easter Closing. The Toronto Family History Centre will be closed on Friday and Saturday 6th and 7th April and on Monday 9th April.
The sky did not exactly fall in with the advent of the restricted access to Ancestry.com. We started the 1/2 hour per booking schedule on Computer No.1, the only computer where we have full access, and have to report that we easily coped with demand and nobody was inconvenienced. On the limited access computers a message comes up inviting you to take out a private subscription. Cheeky, I thought.
We are continuing to experience delays in the delivery of some films from Salt Lake. Whilst about 75% of our orders are being met in 2 to 3 weeks the remaining part of the order is still taking up to 12 weeks. This week we received some films that were ordered on 11 January.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

England , Yorkshire, Penistone. Parish Records. Baptisms and Burials 1644-1812. Fiche No. 6358999 (5 fiche)
USA/Germany. Bridging the Atlantic. Finding your German Ancestor. Fiche No. 6039324 (1 fiche)
Netherlands . Dutch Family Research. Using the collection of the Central Office for Genealogy in the Netherlands. Fiche No. 6085787 (1 fiche).

Films received in the 7 days ending 5 April 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 3 May 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN ON Norfolk Co. Marriages 1923	2266928
CAN PQ Montreal Christ Church 1819	1430780
DEU BAD Urloffen Births 1756 - 1877	0949964
DEU BAD Urloffen Marrs 1786 - 1868	0949966
DEU Schwetz Births 1862-1883	0245574
ENG KEN Canterbury Peculiars Marrs	0396184
ENG NFK Archdeaconry Marr Bonds 1715-34	1596561
ENG NTH Peterboro' Marr Bonds 1824-	1999617
ENG NTT Sutton on Trent BTs 1813-38	0504538
HRV Croatia Sumber Births 1673-1857	2099963
IRL DOW Belfast 1901 Census	0829082
IRL DOW Belfast 1901 Census	0829079
NL Amsterdam Vit Recs Indx 1903-12	1452998
UKR L'viv RC Marr Indx 1931-1946	2034921
USA NY Erie Co. Deeds 1840 - 1841	0590039

News from the trenches

David Parker writes:-

"Some years ago, when I first started my research into the history of my family, a member of the FHC staff told me that it was not just getting the names and the dates, it was meeting the people. He was so right. Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting many previously unknown relatives, mostly a little distant.

One of the things that I have learnt from all this research is persistence, and so just two weeks ago came the greatest pleasure, the end of a long search. I am one of six cousins on my paternal side. Because of family feuds I had never met one of them and had only seen two of them about twice, and that not since 1960. Now we are all in contact with each other, for the first time ever. The two that I was already in touch with are in Basildon, Essex and in Worthing, Sussex; the two that I had hardly ever seen are now in Ireland and in Portsmouth, he having returned there recently from Missionary work as a JW in Spain and the one that I had never met is in New Zealand. My cousin in New Zealand, had no memory of her father and had seen no pictures of him - the parents having separated when she was two and he died five years later. One of my greatest joys was sending her pictures of her father. The last cousin that I located, that two weeks ago, the JW Missionary has just got engaged for the first time at the age of 61! We are hoping to visit England next year, and I am hoping that all the British Isles cousins can meet again."

Were you aware..............

United Kingdom . The AncestorsonBoard website www.findmypast.com have added a further ten years 1910-1919 to their database of passengers leaving for overseas from UK ports so that now 1890 to 1919 is available. This is becoming an increasingly valuable resource -see Bulletin 13/2007 for hints on how to obtain lots of data without it costing you a penny.
Scotland . James Thomson tells us - " Ancestry.com has just uploaded transcriptions of the 1881 and 1901 censuses / censi of Scotland, completing their set of transcriptions of the 1841-1901 Scottish censuses. To crib once more from my own earlier e-mails to you when other censuses were uploaded: Digital images of the enumeration schedules are not included, but a huge strength of the Ancestry transcriptions lies in the number of fields that have been keyed and the fact that one can search on any one or more of them - it is possible, for instance, to do searches on address, occupation (where given), birthplace, first name only, or certain other members of the household such as spouse or parent. Searches in the Ancestry transcriptions might also be useful as preparation for obtaining images from ScotlandsPeople; one may be able to precisely identify a person of interest by taking advantage of the Ancestry search facility and transcriptions, and so not waste credits unnecessarily when in the pay-to-view ScotlandsPeople site".
England , Assisted Emigration and The Petworth Experiment. Around 1830 various parishes in England hit on the idea of providing assisted passages to enable people on parish relief i.e. an increasing number of poor having to be provided for by a static number of taxpayers, to emigrate to one of the colonies – mainly Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A one-off payment would take them off the parish relief roll for ever. Petworth in Sussex joined with other neighbouring parishes in what became known as The Petworth Experiment. The Rev. Thomas Sockett set up the Petworth Emigration Committee and every year from 1832 to 1837 ships were chartered to take parish assisted immigrants from Portsmouth to Toronto. These Petworth immigrants have been extensively studied and two books published – Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada: The Petworth Project 1832-1837 and English Immigrant Voices, Labourers’ Letters from Upper Canada in the 1830s see www.petworthemigrations.com/intro.htm . Petworth was not a big place with a population of just 2,427 in 1851. The Imperial Gazetteer published in 1871 notes that Petworth was "formerly in a disagreeable condition but has been greatly improved".

The cost of the assisted passage varied. Single women of good character going to New Zealand were often given free passages and this included provisions for them on the roughly 100 day voyage while an adult going to Canada could be charged £6.6s. A pamphlet issued by the National Emigration Aid Society c.1869 extolling the virtues of emigration is shown in full on www.theshipslist.com/Forms/assisted1869.html

Various databases exist for these assisted immigrants. Those arriving in New South Wales 1839-1896 are shown on http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/indexes_online_3357.asp . Arriving in Victoria, Australia between 1839 and 1871 are shown on http://proarchives.imagineering.com.au/index_search.asp?searchid=24 . Assisted immigrants to New Zealand between 1871 and 1888 are on a series of LDS films, 1514972 to 1514979 and 1514952 to 1514962.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 13/2007

In this Bulletin

We update you on the Family History Centres and Ancestry.com situation in Announcements
We tell you how to spend a lot of money - or not spend any money - in gathering data from two commercial sites in Were you aware...........
A "Never give up" story in News from the trenches.

Announcements

Ancestry.com situation. We have received no new information or instructions from Salt Lake and so we must assume that as from April 1, Ancestry.com will discontinue supplying their full databases to Family History Centres. In response to Gwen Armstrong's enquiry to Ancestry.com as to whether we, as a Family History Centre, could obtain from them a Library subscription we received today the following message:- " We understand your desire to have Ancestry.com inside your Family History Center. At this point we are not set up to engage in negotiations with individual centers. We remain hopeful there is still a broad agreement that can be reached with the Church".

This means that commencing Monday, April 2, we will continue to be able to provide the full Ancestry.com service i.e. indexes and images, only on one computer - Computer No. 1. The other computers we believe will be able to obtain the limited service - England & Wales 1841-1891 censuses indexes but not images (but note that we could provide the 1891 images on microfiche) and the 1880, 1900 and 1920 US censuses indexes and images but neither the 1901 England & Wales or the 1930 US census index or images.

To cope with this situation - which we hope will be of a short duration - we are making changes to the booking procedures for Computer No. 1. As from Monday, April 2 patrons will be able to book this computer for only one half-hour period per session. (A session is defined as the periods 9.30 to 12, 12 to 2, 2 to 4 and 6.30 to 9.30). Needless to say if no one else has booked, the patron is free to continue. The other computers will remain bookable for the full session.

2006 Canadian Census. Linda Reid draws our attention to the following: Not too late
The 2006 mini-census had a question about "informed consent". Unless people specifically indicated that the data could be released to the public in another 92 years, their information would never come into the public domain. Not answering the question was considered to mean "no". Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that only 56% of Canadians gave the required permission for their data to become part of the historical record.
If you or someone you know neglected to answer "yes" to the question about release in 92 years, it is not too late to make a change. Visit the Statistics Canada web site to get a form to grant permission.
For background reading see Gordon Watts' article of March 26, 2007 on the Global Gazette at :
http://globalgenealogy.com/globalgazette/gazgw/gazgw-0098.htm
A Toronto Star editorial on March 26 also urged Canadians to leave a "snapshot of who we were".
Form for changing your response at:
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/reference/info/change.cfm

Additions to our Permanent Collections

USA . Pennsylvania, Alleghany Co., Round Hill. Presbyterian Church Records 1871-1935 and Cemetery Records 1788-1970.

Fiche 6048270.

Germany . Hamburg Passenger List Research Papers. Series C, No. 30. Fiche 6000034

Germany . Captured 1932-1945 German Documents. Fiche 6334167

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/12/2007. England. ( William Parker, b. 1876, 1901 Census of Aston, Birmingham shows him as Electrician and Lay Preacher. How do I find out what his church connections were?). The fact that he married in the Church of England Parish Church I do not think is terribly significant. If he belonged to a denomination such as the Methodists or Baptists he would not have been able to marry in their place of worship unless he had a Registrar present which would have added to the cost. However, the place where any children were baptized would be significant and if, in fact they were baptized in an independent church you might well assume that this is where his affiliations were – he might well have baptized his own children. I note that in the 1901 census he is not described as a lay preacher but as a local preacher and I note too that just a few doors away from where he lived in Dolobran Road stood the Christ Church Mission Hall. This, no doubt, was affiliated to the Parish Church of Christ Church in Aston and I would not therefore discount the possibility that his local preaching took place there. The Church of England did use lay preachers, particularly in working class areas, quite often Church Army officers. Baptisms for the period 1901-1912 which took place in the Parish Church are on LDS film 1545530 and, if your further research leads you to suspect that his connections were with the Church of England you might want to take a look at the Vestry Minute Books in case he charged up some expenses. For the period 1832 to 1917 these are on LDS film 1545635.

Q2/12/2007. Scotland/Canada. (Heard family emigrated from Scotland to Canada 1850's). We have made some progress with this quesion and expect to be able to provide an answer shortly.

Films received in the 7 days ending 29 March 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 26 April, 2007.

Film Content	Film No
ENG BKM Choulesbury PR 1583-1837	0919225
ENG BKM Gt Hampden PR 1557-1812	0924816
ENG ESS Great Oakley PR 1559-1928	1565653
ENG NTT Lenton BTs 1600-1812	0503787
ENG SAL Burford PR BMB 1813-1928	1526893
ENG YKS Masham PR BMB 1742-	0993290
ENG YKS Masham PR BMB 1800	0993291
SCT Chiefs of Grant	0277773
SCT Chiefs of Grant	0277771

News from the trenches.

Never give up. Chris Roberts writes:

My Search for "Russian Tom"
In March 2002, I came to a roadblock trying to establish the birthplace of my Sheffield g-g-grandfather, Thomas Surgey. I knew nothing about him except that he was called "Russian Tom" by his mates "at the works," and that he had been in the navy. I was unable to find his 1838 birth on the GRO and so, in the absence of earlier census information, concluded that he probably wasRussian born and had Anglicized Sergei to Surgey. I sent an email request to Rootsweb's Sheffield mailing list for some ideas about "Russian Tom's" birthplace including the above facts . Nothing came of that and so, I set the search aside.
In November, 2006, I received an email from woman in England. She had seen my request in the Rootsweb archives and was writing to tell me that "Russian Tom" Surgey was her g-g-g-grandfather and that her mother was my grandmother's first cousin! (They were both born in 1897.) Over the following months, we emailed back and forth filling each other in on the oral history that we had heard, as well as sharing new information we were now finding on early censuses, BMD indexes, cemetery transcriptions and certificate data. Through her, I was put in touch with another Surgey descendent of Tom whose father was another cousin of my grandmother. Now, we had a descendent from each of Tom's three children.
We found out that Tom Surgey was indeed English-born--in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. His father died when he was 2 and in 1851, at age 12, he was in a Horncastle workhouse. We learned from another relative that he did sail on ships--plying the Baltic Sea--before he settled in Sheffield. (Perhaps this is where his moniker originated.) But the icing on the cake, was receiving photos of ancestors I knew only by name--extended family members who lived but a few streets apart. (Being immigrants, our photo collection of this family was very limited.) Now, I have photos of my great-grandparents when they were young, my g-g-ggrandmother in old age, as well as siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins of my grandmother, two family wedding
groups--even a photo of Captain Surgey's straight razor and his pipe. Perhaps the most poignant, were the photos of Gran as a young woman, lovely and stylish and her only sister that died of TB at age 23 in 1918. I treasure them daily, often noting some striking family resemblances.
As a result of a simple query on Rootweb, I have gained so many insights about my mother's and grandmother's early life and the
ancestors/extended family that were important to them. I can't begin to express just how much it has meant to me. So, don't give up. "Cast your hook and a fish will come."

Were you aware.............

United Kingdom . Searching for living people. Only around 40% of UK telephone subscribers ( England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) are now home phone BritishTelecom subscribers. Competition is such that you can sign up for service by the local supermarket chain and more and more people are using just a cell phone service, dispensing entirely with a home phone. But it is only BritishTelecom that has a searchable telephone directory and even with this one has to know the area in which the person is living. You have to be fairly lucky then to find someone. An independent service – www.192.com – provides an alternative. Their records are based on the Electoral Rolls with a listing of 29 million people. For £349.99 you can buy a CD which would enable you to search by a name or an address but I can’t imagine many of you buying this. However you can search free of charge on-line by a name and a town and the listing shows all the people of that name living within a 25 mile radius of the town. It doesn’t show the full address, just the name of the town or village or the postal district of the bigger cities. But it does show the names of people living with the named person so, knowing the name of a partner, one can often identify the correct person. However, you still won’t have the full address. To get this you will have to buy credits from 192.com, the minimum subscription being £9.95 for 5 credits, 1 credit being required for each search for an address from the original free of charge listing. Now, here comes the Toronto Family History Centre bonus. I have a personal collection of Electoral Roll CDs that I will willingly look up for you. Email me pgoddard@interlog.com with the details – possibly obtained from the free of charge 192.com listing – and I will do my best to provide you with the address information.

United Kingdom . We have referred in previous Bulletins to the www.findmypast.com site as being the place to go for Passenger Lists for people leaving the UK. Again this is a pay-per-view site but it is possible to obtain quite a lot of useful information without paying a penny. As a test of this I put in "Goddard" in the main search box and came up with over 1000 entries in the Passengers leaving the UK 1890-1909 database, in most cases giving me their full name, their destination and year of departure. I was able to cut and paste the listing into MS Excel and sort by year of departure, giving me an idea of who was travelling with who. Where they were going to the US I was able to compare this with the Ellis Island lists. The search also gave me the full names of 8 Goddards appearing in the Clergy List of 1896 and 6 in the Medical Register of 1913. To obtain copies of the actual entries can get expensive. An image of a passenger list uses up 30 units and the smallest number of units one can buy is 50 at a cost of £5.

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 12/2007

Lots of questions in this week's Forum Would appreciate help in answering them!

In this Bulletin

Shocking news from Salt Lake on the future of Ancestry.com in Family History Centres (Announcements)
We draw your attention to the valuable background information available to you in The Three Gazetteers (Were you aware........).
James Thomson discusses current and future General Register Office BMD indexes ( England & Wales) in Were you aware.........

Announcements

Family History Centre Directors in English Language areas throughout the world have been advised by Salt Lake Family History Support that as of April 1, 2007 Ancestry.com will discontinue providing access in Family History Centres to the full Ancestry.com data bases. Ancestry.com will continue to supply index and images for the 1880, 1900 and 1920 US censuses and indexes (but not images) for the British 1841-1891 censuses but neither index or images for the 1930 US census or the British 1901 Census. We are still hopeful that Salt Lake and Ancestry.com will reach an agreement and in next week's Bulletin we will bring you up to date with the latest position
We are still experiencing long delays in the delivery of some films ordered for patrons. Yesterday we received some films which almost completed the order we placed on 4 January but we are still awaiting films from orders we placed on 11 January and thereafter. We spoke to Salt Lake today and were advised that they are getting the problem - caused by staff shortages - under control, and are gradually catching up.

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/09/2007 UK/Canada/USA. Professional records such as for lawyers and doctors (partially answered in Bulletin 10/2007). Marian Press writes: The Inner Temple Admissions Database is online. I found one of my relatives there.
http://www.innertemple.org.uk/archive/itad/index.asp.

New Questions

Q1/12/2007. England. My grandfather William PARKER was born in 1876, in Aston, Birmingham. The 1901 census shows him as a "Lay Preacher and electrician" In July 1901 he married at a local C of E Parish Church. I doubt if at the age of 25 he would have been a lay reader within that denomination - Methodism or Baptist would be more likely -he was teetotal. That he was a lay preacher was a surprise at the time of the release of the 1901 to all his grandchildren and his one remaining daughter-in-law, for none of us remember him as a Church-goer. By 1905 he had left Aston for Heysham, Lancs and by 1915 was in Portsmouth. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to discover what his church connections were.

Q2/12/2007. Scotland/Canada. I am having trouble tracing my great grand-aunt, Mary Jane Heard/Hurd. Her parents, Robert and Jane immigrated to Canada from Scotland in the mid-1850's with their children: Andrew, William Robert, Elizabeth, Annie, James and Joseph. The first record I have of Mary Jane is on the 1871 Canadian census for District No. 58, North Peterborough, in the Township of Dysart, where she is listed as living in the same household as her mother, Jane (age 75) and three siblings: Andrew (age 27), Annie (age 28), Joseph (age 24). Mary Jane’s age is shown as 19, making her date of birth 1852. According to this census, the place of birth for all members of the family was Scotland. On the 1881 census ( Peterborough East, District 125), the family is now comprised of Jane (age 85), Andrew (age 37), James (age 34), and Mary (age 25), making her date of birth 1856. Her birthplace is now shown as Ontario, although the rest of the family are listed as being born in Scotland. As you can see, I have not determined the particulars of Mary Jane’s marriages. I cannot find a death record without knowing her married surname and date of birth. As to the birth, I am not sure if it occurred in Scotland or Ontario and remain uncertain of the date. Depending on the date, her legitimacy may also be called into question. I would be most appreciative if anyone has any suggestions how to resolve this problem.

Q3/12/2007. Canada. My 2nd ggrandmother was born Mary Brown c 1804. On 23 April 1823 she was married at St Mary's Cathedral Kingston, ON, to Ronald MacDonald, witnesses John MacDonnell & W Fraser. Mary and Ronald moved to Wolfe Island, ON and the births of their childlren are recorded in either the St Mary's Cathedral Kingston and or Sacred Heart of Mary Church Wolfe Island, ON registers between 1825 and 1848. Mary is listed in the 1851 census for Wolfe Island, with her family, as age 47 and born at sea. She is also in the 1861 census for Wolfe Island but shown as age 59 born Wolfe Island. Her husband Ronald MacDonald (UEL) was born Glengarry ON c 1798, died 22 October 1862 and is buried in the Sacred Heart of Mary old Cemetery on Wolfe Island. His Will dated 1862 and registered in 1868 mentions "my beloved Mary McDonell". Mary is not mentioned in the 1871 census for Wolfe Island and I have not located her with any of her children in that census. Furthermore, I have not found a death, remarriage or interment record in either the Sacred Heart of Mary or St Mary's Cathedral records. I would be very glad to receive any advice on where I might look for my missing Mary. Also her birth at sea without confirmation of family member names seems impossible to confirm. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Q4/12/2007. England. I have been searching unsuccessfully for the British military record for my maternal great grandfather, John Thompson. There is clear evidence (official & unofficial) that he spent from the 1840s to the early 1860s as a member of the Royal Artillery. He was stationed in or near Montreal in the 1840s, and was married (apparently in Montreal) to Ann Walford and back in England by about 1850. His children’s census and birth references indicate his family address was at Woolwich (headquarters of the RA I think) for nearly all of the 1850s, and in the 1861 census he is listed at Frimley (near Aldershot). In the 1861census and in his son’s (my grandfather’s) 1855 birth record, John Thompson is identified as a Sergeant in the Royal Artillery.In 1862, he and his family of 5 children (all born in England), returned to Canada (whether still in the military or as a civilian is not known), where 6 more children were born. In 1869 he received a land grant in Draper Twp in Muskoka, where he farmed and lived until his death in 1899.According to all census references ( England and Canada) he was born in Scotland, around 1822 to 1824. His Ontario death record indicates he was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. I have unsuccessfully tried a number of sources including: the National Archives in Ottawa (for British military who served in Canada), and the suggestions from earlier FHC bulletins for searching for records of British military personnel through the (British) National Archives website. So far I have found nothing, including in the search by name. However, not having much knowledge of military ranks, practices and administrative procedures, terminology, etc., I may have missed the proper place to search. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Films received in the 7 days ending 22 March 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 19 April 2007.

Film Content	Film No
CAN Bio. of Lucy Anna Olney Nichols	1033909
DEU Budwethen Baptisms 1844-1849	1813545
DEU Repat Germans EWZ 57	2098537
ENG CON Tremyne Family	1696698
ENG DBY Dronfield pr 1560-1922	1041034
ENG DEV Exeter Death Duty Reg 1796	1368366
ENG LAN Ashton in M'field Bur 1861-	1885663
ENG NFK Scoulton PR 1550-1924	1526885
ENG OXF Headington Monument Inscrip	0496510
ENG YKS Slaithwaite PR 1813-1837	0990698
ENG YRK Huddersfield pr 1818+	0990695
GRD St Andrew Civ Reg 1905-1931	1523427
IND Bengal BMB Jan-Mar 1909	0528122
IOM Douglas Athol Str Ind Chapel 1809-	0106721
NDL Almelo Doopgazinde Kerk Baptism	0116413
NLD Medemblik Burial Bk 1783-1826	0526660
PHL Binalonan Pangasinan Bapt 1884-	1209459
PHL Binalonan Pangasinan Bapt 1895-	1209735
SCT ANS Maines S'mtin PR 1635-1740	0993488
USA Alvin Nichols Utah Pioneer	0962259
USA Nichols Families in America	0874432
USA Nichols Family History	1440708
USA UT Brigham City LDS Records	0025810

Were you aware…………….

Canada/England/Scotland. The Tale of the Three Gazetteers . Most of you will know that I have very little patience with those researchers (I use the word with some difficulty) who go merrily adding names to their shaky family tree with little evidence, other that they found names that looked right on the IGI. Even less with those who publish their dubious findings on some website or other. The laws governing pornography should apply. But many keen researchers overlook discovering what the places where their ancestors lived were really like – the places where they were born, where they were married, where they had children, where they worked and where they died.

A rich treasure trove awaits you in three gazetteers that we have on microfiche in the Toronto Family History Centre. Here I give you examples of the material you can find for places taken more or less at random from each of these gazetteers. You will almost certainly find even the smallest hamlet in these gazetteers

Canada . The Dominion Directory 1871 . (Microfiche 6046766. 48 fiche)

Box Grove. A small village in the township of Markham, county of York. It possesses good water privileges. Distant from Scarborough, a station of the Grand Trunk railway 10 miles; from Markham 3 miles; from Toronto 20 miles. Mail daily. Population about 150. (There follows a list of 40 of the inhabitants among which are John Bede a toolmaker, John McCaffrey the postmaster, Joseph Milroy the tavernkeeper, William Hendley the butcher, a cooper, a blacksmith, a weaver, several carpenters, farmers, labourers and John Raymer who worked in a cheese factory.

England . The Imperial Gazatteer (sic) Published 1871. (Microfiche Nos. 6020308 to 6020336)

DATCHET, a parish in Eton district, Bucks; on the river Thames and on the Windsor branch of the South Western railway, 2 miles E of Windsor. It has a station on the railway and a post office under Windsor. Acres 1,630. Real property £6,086. Pop., 982. Houses 182. The property is much subdivided. Two bridges called the Victoria and the Albert, the former a neat iron structure, give communication across the Thames. Datchet Mead was the scene of Falstaff’s punishment in the “Merry Wives of Windsor”. A fishing house of Sir H. Wotton, yearly visited by Isaak Walton, stood on the Thames at Datchet; and was succeeded by a summer house of the painter, Verrio. Anglers from the old times till the present, have loved to fish here; and Pope says, respecting Charles II,

“Methinks I see our mighty monarch stand,

The pliant rod now trembling in his hand:

And see, he now doth up from Datchet come,

Laden with spoils of slaughter’d gudgeons home”

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford, Value £145. Patrons, the Deans and Canons of Windsor. The church was rebuilt in 1869 and is in the decorated style. There are a Baptist chapel, a library and reading room, a national school, and charities £119.

Scotland . The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland. Published 1882. (Fiche Nos. 6020391 to 6020411)

Alloway. An ancient quoad civilia and a modern quoad sacra parish of Ayrshire, on the lowest reaches of the ‘bonny Doon’ 2 miles S of the town of Ayr. The ancient parish, lying wholly to the right of the Doon, and separated by Glengaw Burn from Ayr, was united to the latter towards the close of the 17 th Century; the modern parish includes a portion of Mayhole, on the Doon’s left bank, and had 815 inhabitants in 1871 (315 of them in Mayhole). In the presbytery of Ayr and synod of Glasgow and Ayr, with a stipend of £150, it possesses a handsome Gothic church (1858), and a public school, which, with accommodation for 159 children had (1879) an average attendance of 117, and a grant of £75.13s - . ‘Alloway’s auld haunted kirk’ a little roofless ruin, First Pointed in style, stands just below the ‘Auld Brig’ of Doon. Visited now by pilgrims from many lands, this long had been merely the resting place of unknown peasant folk, when Burns selected it for the scene of the demon revelry of Tam o’Shanter. Near the churchyard gate, the grave of the poet’s father (1721-1784) is marked by a simple stone – not the original which relic-mongers carried piecemeal away; the poet himself would fain have shared that grave. The interior of the kirk has been stripped of its woodwork, for snuff boxes and the like; here is buried David Cathcart, Lord Alloway (1764-1829), senator of the College of Justice. A cenotaph to Burns, erected in 1820 after a design by Hamilton of Edinburgh, at a cost of £3350, and comprising a triangular base, a Corinthian cyclostyle, and an ornate cupola, with surmounting tripod, stands about 100 yard E of the old church and is surrounded by an enclosed plot of 1¼ acre, in which a small grotto contains Thom’s statues of ‘Tam o’Shanter’ and ‘Souter Johnnie’. The Auld Brig o’Doon, a gaunt structure of great antiquity, famous for the fight between Cassillis and Bargeny (1601), more famous for its part in Tam o’Shanter, crosses the river close to the monument; and the neat new bridge, later than Burn’s day, spans it, some distance lower down. The ‘Auld Clay Biggin’, Burns’ birthplace (23 Jan 1759), and scene of his ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night’, stands about ¾ mile to the N, and, theretofore a public house, was purchased in 1880 for £4000 from the Ayr Corporation of Shoemakers by the trustees of the monument, by them to be converted into a kind of Burns museum. Mount Oliphant, to which Burns’ father removed in 1777, is about 1 ½ mile to the ESE; and Doonbrae Cottage, Cambusdoon House, Roselle, and Doonholm are seats within ½ mile of the church or monument. Alloway Moat, near the avenue leading to Doonholm, is an ancient artificial mound, used in old times for holding courts of justice. Ord.Sur, sc 14, 1683.

England and Wales. Post-1837 Indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths . James Thomson writes “I touched last week on online indexes to local register office registers; an excellent starting point in finding such indexes is www.ukbmd.org.uk . (Although the URL was given correctly last week, there was problem with the hyperlink – the link as given in the preceding sentence should work fine.) There are, as was noted, some prospective advantages in searching in the local registers in preference to the national (General Register Office, or GRO) registers which were compiled from them.

One of the great advantages of the GRO indexes, of course, is that it's possible to search across all registration districts in England and Wales at one go. Additionally, such indexes (or indexes compiled from data in the GRO indexes) are conveniently and freely available to us here in Toronto: for instance, FreeBMD www.freebmd.org.uk is an excellent resource for the period 1837-1915; the Toronto FHC in Don Mills has a complete run of the GRO indexes on microfilm and then fiche for the period 1837-2003 (with the 2004 fiche about to arrive); and there are databases (currently freely accessible from home, upon registration) in Ancestry which include browseable digital images of the GRO indexes for the period 1837-1983 and fully searchable databases for the period 1984-2004.

The GRO indexes are known to suffer from errors and omissions, however, and hence the indexes (such as those in FreeBMD and Ancestry) compiled from data in them can be no better. However, there is now a major program to completely re-index the entries in the GRO registers, and to make the new index freely available online. The new index will also include data fields not in the current GRO indexes for the early years of civil registration, such as: for births, mother's maiden name (now available only from 1911); for marriages, spouse's name (now available just from 1912 or through FreeBMD); and, for deaths, age at death (now available just from 1866). Of course, this is in essence a new and enhanced index to the GRO registers – and to the extent that the entries in the GRO registers themselves contain errors (such as transcription errors introduced when the GRO registers were compiled from the local registers), indexes to local registers such as those signposted on www.ukbmd.org.uk may remain an attractive alternative.

It is planned that the new index will start to appear online early in 2008, the first tranche perhaps to consist of birth and death entries for the period 1837-1958. Although it will be possible to order a certificate of a register entry by way of a direct link from the index, and although digital images of the register entries themselves are also being created, current plans -absent legislative change- are to employ such digital images internally only, for certificate preparation (in other words, one would still have to order a certificate of such an entry rather than having direct access to the digital image – in contrast to the situation in Scotland, for instance).”

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 11/2007

In this Bulletin

I'm sure you know about the Scottish Fornication Courts but what about their Register of Inhibitions? And interesting stuff about testaments and confirmations in Were you aware................
James Thomson draws our attention to the value of Local Register Office BMD indexes ( England & Wales) in Were you aware..................

Announcements

The Drouin Indexes (mainly Quebec marriages) have just been uploaded onto the Ancestry.ca site. We have not, as yet, had a chance to check them out but we hope to report on them next week.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

Canada, Ontario Grenville Co. Cemetery Records. Microfiche No. 6067284 (2 fiche)

Canada , Ontario, Kempville Marriages 1858-1880. Microfiche No. 6126032 (1 fiche)

England , Devon, Kingsbridge Parish Register 1612-1797. Microfiche 6035471 (4 fiche)

The Forum

New Question

Q1/11/2007. England & Ireland.

I recently started to research my mother's side of the family which has roots in Ireland. My great great great grandparents were John and Elizabeth Hand (formerly Hand). I have no dates or place of birth or death for either John or Elizabeth but do know that they were married on March 3, 1872 in the Catholic Chapel, St. Mary's Church, on Haddington Road in Dublin. The marriage certificate lists James as being of "full age" and Elizabeth being 18 which puts her date of birth in 1853 or 1854. The 1901 British Census lists James' age as 54 and if that is accurate would put his year of birth at 1846 or 1847. However, the 1871 census records his age as 32 with his year of birth as 1839. Other information on the marriage certificate - Elizabeth's father's name was John Hand (bricklayer) and James' father was named Bernard Hand (farmer). I also know that subsequent to their marriage John and Elizabeth lived on West St., Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan where they had their first child, a daughter named Mary Anne who was born on June 19, 1874. They then had a son John Hand born on September 4, 1976 in either Castleblayney or Dublin. They then emigrated from Ireland to Prestwich, England between 1876 and 1879 where my great great grandmother Elizabeth Christina Hand was born on January 8, 1879. John and Elizabeth went on to have five more sons James G., William, Francis, Herbert J. and Charles E.
I also know that at one point a nephew named James Hand lived with James and Elizabeth in Broughton, Salford, England and that the nephew was the son of Patrick and Harriet Hand who lived in Liverpool, England. I do not know if Patrick was John or Elizabeth's brother.
I would be grateful if you had some suggestions as to what my next step would be to continue the search for both John and Elizabeth's family and roots without any other pertinent information which has been made even more difficult seeing as both have the same last name.

Films received in the 7 days ending 15 March 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 12 April 2007

Film Content	Film No
DEU Emigration Card File 1784-1785	1327508
DEU Emigration Index Schneider - Tram	1326496
DEU WPRU Gruppe PRs Births 1867-1881	0245600
DEU WPRU Gruppe PRs Marrs 1854-1883	0245602
DEU WUE Kirkenbuck PRs 1553 - 1974	1340217
ENG DEV Hartland Land Tax 1716-1832	1471064
ENG DEV Hartland Land Tax 1780-1816	1471063
ENG LDN Grocers Co Records 1345-1881	1850673
FRA BAS Hatten BMD Index 1813-1862	0731409
IRL CAV Kilmore 1901 Census	0812125
IRL CAV Kilmore 1911 Census	2029028
JAM St Anns Marriages 1880 - 1890	1389334
PHL Pangasthan S'Manuel Bths 1922-6	1778187
PHL San Juan La Union Bths 1922-32	1748578
SCT KCD Ternian Banchory pr	0993308

Were you aware…………..

Scotland . Most of you will be familiar with the term “my last will and testament” i.e. the document where you set out your wishes for the disposal of your assets upon your death and that, I believe, is the general understanding of the term. Not so in Scotland. According to “ Scotland’s People” http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk a testament is a document drawn up by the court confirming the appointment of the executor of the estate. But, according to the National Archives of Scotland www.nas.gov.uk/guides/wills.asp a testament is the collective term used to describe all the documents relating to the executry of a deceased person. And that is only the beginning of the confusing terms surrounding wills in Scotland.

Testament testamentar is equivalent to the English Grant of Probate i.e. it gives the executor the right to dispose of the deceased’s property according to the terms of the will. Where no will exists the testament dative equates to the English Letters of Administration.

In Scotland an individuals property was divided into Heritable Property i.e. land and buildings, and Moveable Property consisting of everything else. Until 1964 Heritable Property would pass to the eldest son unless (from 1868) the will specified otherwise. However it was not until the 20 th Century that property ownership began to become widespread in Scotland, prior to that all of the land was owned by just 3% of the population. However, there are over 600,000 wills and testaments indexed on Scotland’s People covering the period 1514 to 1901, nearly all of which will contain an inventory of an individuals assets and naming the executor. Searching the index is free of charge and you can download copies of the documents for a standard charge of £5.00.

To throw in another confusing term, The Calendar of Confirmations has nothing to do with a church ceremony but again roughly equates to the English Probate Indexes. From 1876 to 1936 is covered by LDS microfiche starting with fiche no. 6068884 which we have in the Toronto Family History Centre and which will indicate where the probated documents are located. From 1937 to the present day we would need to get our friendly Edinburgh researcher to identify the death and find any will or testament that might exist. Contact us if you need this help.

The Calendar of Confirmations is tremendously informative and one must not think that only the wealthy are to be found there.

Take this as an example from the 1902 Calendar of Confirmations:

"WINTER, Jane Macfarlane or (note maiden name is given), sometime residing at 84 High Street, Ayr latterly at 31 Queen's Terrace there widow of Robert Winter Ironmonger died 16 March 1902 testate. Inventory given up at Ayr 3 December by Margaret Mcfarlane or Urie, 31 Queen's Terrace aforesaid, widow, Executrix nominated in will or deed dated 8 May 1900 and recorded in Court Books of Commissariot of Ayr 5 December 1902. Value of Estate £10."

I will refrain from going on about other strange sounding indexes such as the Services of Heirs and the Register of Sasines but I can’t help advising you that the Register of Inhibitions is not some strange Scottish custom of recording an individual’s oddities but is the listing of the writs whereby a debtor is prohibited from selling or burdening his property!

England and Wales. Local Register Office Indexes to Post-1837 BMDs . James Thomson writes: “Anyone researching births, marriages or deaths (BMDs) registered in England or Wales after July 1, 1837, will soon be familiar with the quarterly indexes to such events produced by the General Register Office (GRO) or by others using data from the GRO (including FreeBMD and Ancestry). Easier to overlook, perhaps, is a growing body of indexes to the registers in which such BMDs were originally entered, namely those of the local register offices.

There is an excellent starting point for finding available indexes to local registers, at www.ukbmd.org.uk . It briefly describes the relationship between the local registers and the (national) GRO registers which were compiled from them, and refers the reader to a very good article which notes the perils of relying on the current GRO indexes: www.lfhhs.org.uk/help/factsh/lbmd.htm After reading these descriptions, one might well feel inclined to see whether an index to local registers is also available for the region in which one would like to search, and the place to start is by clicking the “Local BMD” button near the top left of the UK BMD home page (above).

It will quickly become apparent that the available indexes cover various types of geographic unit (some large, some small) and various date ranges, and are structured in different ways (though at least eight use software developed for the indexing project in Cheshire, and it is possible to search across all of the eight indexes at once). Nonetheless, it won't take long to get a sense of what is available, and the reward could be locating an entry which had long proved elusive in trolling through GRO indexes (or locating such an entry more easily – some of the indexes are fully searchable, by name, for part or all of the period (notably 1915-1983) for which certain indexes based on the GRO registers are merely browseable).

Having said all this, one must not fail to salute the splendid work which continues to be done by volunteers transcribing the GRO indexes through FreeBMD; to see exactly where the project now stands, click on the hyperlinks on http://www.freebmd.org.uk/progress.shtml to the birth, marriage and death coverage charts. In a future Bulletin, I'll outline three pending developments respecting GRO indexes generally.”

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 10/2007

Every week we try to include in the Bulletin some informative items, usually in the Were you aware............ section. All readers are invited to contribute to this section. If you have a piece of information that you feel would be of interest to other readers, please submit it.

In this Bulletin

News of changes to the England GRO system of providing the index information of births, marriages and deaths in Were you aware...........
Sources for Irish genealogical data in Were you aware..............

Announcements

The Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has advised us that James Thomson's course Expert Topics in Scottish Family History (being held in April/May at the Toronto Reference Library) is full.
The Simcoe Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society tell us that they are hosting the Region V Annual Meeting and Conference to be held at the Alumni Hall, Georgian College, Barrie on Saturday April 28 featuring, inter alia, presentations on Ontario Land Records and What there is on the Internet for Canadian Genealogists.

Additions to our Permanent Collections

England , Essex, West Ham. Our thanks to Margaret Taylor who has donated 3 microfiche issued by the Essex County Record Office showing Baptisms, Marriages and Burials for the parish church of All Saints for 1746 to 1749. (These are not available on LDS film or fiche).

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions

Q1/08/2007. England. What happened to the children of Snowden Temple after they were orphaned in 1841? We regret we still have not got any definitive answers to this question. However we suggest that as Snowden's wife, Sarah Simpson, seems to have established settlement in West Acklam, Yorkshire, you investigate whether she had siblings in that area and for the females, if any, try to discover who they married. We will publish any further details we are able to obtain.

Q1/09/2007. UK/Canada/USA. Is it possible to find schooling and/or other professional records for doctors, lawyers etc? Although one finds the occasional record of professionals both on LDS films and on-line there doesn't seem to be any continuous run of records. When I have hit this problem in the past I have been successful in obtaining details from the professional associations such as the British Medical Association and from the details they have provided I have established the name of the university they attended. Most professional associations publish directories of their current members.

Q2/09/2007. England & Wales. Certificates provided by the GRO appear to be all in the same hand. How can I obtain a certificate showing the 'real' signatures? 1) The local registration offices copied – either by hand or typewritten – the entries made in their registers and sent them to the GRO. Certificates issued by the GRO are photocopies of these copied entries so none of them will show the hand writing or signatures of the parties involved. 2) You don't have to order certificates from the GRO - you can order them from the registration office responsible for the area in which the original certificate was issued. You may be lucky in being able to get a birth or death certificate with the original signatures if the local registration office provides photocopies of the original register entries but most of these offices issue handwritten/typed copies of the original – you should enquire which method they use before placing an order.3) In the case of a marriage occurring in a Parish Church, LDS filmed copies of the register are often available. Consult the Family History Library Catalog to see if the filmed Parish Register covers the event you are interested in. A problem with this is that the registration district shown in the GRO indexes will usually cover a number of parishes and so you will need to be sure which parish the marriage took place in.

Films received in the 7 days ending 8 March 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 5 April 2007.

Film Content	Film No
DEU Repat Germans GenealogicalData	1797311
ENG IOM Marr Dissent Indx 1884-1964	0454953
ENG IOM Marriage Index 1884-1964	0454951
ENG YRK Otley pr	0918402
NDL Rotterdam Marriage Intent 1868	1339142
NDL Rotterdam Marriage Intent 1909	1748840
NDL Strijen Marriage Intent 1837-1838	0120829
NDL Strijen Marriage Intent 1863-1867	1337427
SCT Service of Heirs 1852	0231429

Were you aware...................

England & Wales I received a letter this week from the GRO advising me that they will not be producing the microfiche version of the indexes of births, marriages and deaths beyond the year 2004. (We have the indexes up to 2003 in the Toronto Family History Centre and expect to receive the indexes for 2004 shortly). They tell me that by early 2008 they expect to have the new versions of the index (which will include spouses surnames in the marriage indexes, maiden surname of mothers in the birth indexes and age of death in the death indexes) for viewing free of charge on-line. Initially the years covered will probably be from 1837 to 1958 with the years to 2006 following shortly thereafter. The Family Records Centre in Islington will close by April, 2008 and their records will be moved to the National Archives complex at Kew. The GRO currently issues about 180,000 certificates per month three-quarters of them having been ordered on-line.
Ireland . The Irish Family History Foundation is the co-ordinating body for a network of government approved genealogical research centres in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) and in Northern Ireland which have computerised tens of millions of Irish ancestral records of different types . Their website is www.irish-roots.net On this site you will find a county by county listing of all the Parish Records - Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian that have been indexed and available for consultation through the county research centres. There is a charge for these services. The site indicates that these records are shortly going to be made available on-line on a pay-per-view basis. Whilst on the subject of Ireland, may I remind you that we have in the Family History Centre the Civil Registation Indexes from 1864 to 1959 (from 1845 for Protestant Marriages). We have also the Irish Will Indexes from 1828 to 1920 and the PC of Armagh Probate Calendars from 1811 to 1857. Apart from this a vast amount of data is available to order. The 1911 Census of Ireland is contained in 3,317 films, the 1901 Census on 1,269 films and then, if you have some convicts in your family, there are over 100 indexed films of giving name, offense and the date and place of conviction. There are 5 films giving the details of convicts transported to Australia.
And while we are on the subject of convicts take a look at the photograph of William Goddard who was in Aylesbury Gaol in 1872 on http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/bucks_prisoners/prioner_detail.asp?Counter=413 There is no family resemblance. Is there?

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Toronto Family History Centre Bulletin 09/2007

We apologise for the late despatch of this Bulletin. Weather conditions yesterday evening dictated that it was prudent to stay at home.

In this Bulletin

The horrors of the English penal system in the late 19th Century are described in News from the trenches
News of the arrival on-line of the 1871 and 1891 Scottish censuses and another Scottish site in Were you aware..........

Announcements

A delicate matter. It has been brought to our attention that some people are allergic to perfume - sufficiently so as to bring on an asthma attack. One of our regular patrons has had to cease attending a session since she knows that she will react to a perfume worn by another patron who tends to attend the same session. We work in a confined area - can we agree to make it a scent-free zone?
The days when it was necessary to book a film reader 3 weeks in advance have long gone but we would still like you to tell us in advance when you plan to attend the Centre. If nobody has booked and nobody is in attendance the volunteer on duty might well decide to close up long before the official closing time. Recently, there were no bookings for a particular session and three people turned up, fortunately before the volunteer had closed up. Then on a Saturday morning a patron turned up and we were unable to accommodate him. So please, make a booking.
The 9 films that were outstanding from the order placed before Christmas arrived here minutes ago (not included in the list below).

The Forum

Answers to Previous Questions.

Q1/08/2007 (The Snowden Temple question). We have put in quite a bit of work on this but are puzzled by certain aspects. We hope to publish the results next week.

New Questions

Q1/09/2007. UK/Canada/USA. Is it possible to find schooling and/or other professional records for doctors, lawyers, etc.?

If so, where would one look for them? Is there a general index? (Our questioner did not say which countries were being referred to - we made this limitation).Q2/09/2007. England. I had always (naively) thought that, the certificates ordered from the GRO were photocopies of the original. And therefore the (informant & bride & groom) signatures on the certificates were actually the signatures of my ancestors. However, looking closely at them I conclude that all the fields are written by the same person.So my question is - what actually are the certificates received from the GRO? Are they photocopies of transcriptions of the original? If so, who did the transcription & when? Can one actually obtain a copy of the original, with the 'real' signatures? Films received in the 7 days ending 1 March 2007, due for return (unless renewed) 29 March 2007.


Film Content	Film No
DEU Offenback RC PR 1691-1798	0466715
ENG DUR Auckland-St And. Bap 1813-	0434938
ENG DUR Auckland-St And. Bap 1856-	0434939
ENG DUR Auckland-St And. Mar 1845-	0434936
ENG WO 69/8 Desc Bks 1843-1851	0866534
ENG YKS Dewsbury PR 1798-1821	0990587
SCT ANS Mains & Strathm'tn PR 1740-	0993489
WLS DEN Wrexham BTs 1710-1823	0104827

News from the trenches .

England. Crime and Punishment. Last week I drew your attention to the availability on-line of a vast number of documents through the National Archives Documents on Line facility. Among them were the Victorian Prisoners Photograph Albums which consist of photographs and details of 626 prisoners in Wandsworth Prison ( South London) in 1872 and 1873. Wandsworth housed all manner of prisoners but it was not until 1878 that executions were carried out there. Of the 626 prisoners I found that no less than 114 of them were children under the age of 16, twenty of them girls.

33 were 15 years old

35 were 14 years old

27 were 13 years old

12 were 12 years old

6 were 11 years old and 1 was just 10 years old.

So what heinous crime did 10 year old George Davey, born in Richmond, commit? He stole 2 tame rabbits and was sentenced to 1 month hard labour.

Then there was 13 year old Henry Munday born in Clapham who stole 14lbs of sugar who was sentenced to 4 days hard labour and a whipping.

James William Hempson age 13 born in Surrey stole a box of figs and got 4 days hard labour and 10 strokes of the birch. Henry Miller age 15 born in the Borough stole a loaf of bread and got 10 days hard labour and a whipping

The short sentences of 4 and 10 days seem always to be accompanied by the sentence of a whipping or a birching. In the case of birching the number of strokes was defined but not so the whipping. The longer sentences of up to 3 months hard labour were usually accompanied by a sentence of a period in a reformatory school of up to 5 years duration. John Greening age 11 born in Mortlake got 1 month hard labour and 5 years reformatory for stealing a quart of growing gooseberries.

The girls were not subjected to corporal punishment but their period of hard labour and reformatory was much the same as the boys. Sarah Coker age 13 got 1 month hard labour and 4 years reformatory for cheating (not defined) while Mary Ann Anscombe who was 13 when she stole a pencil case got 1 month hard labour and 5 years reformatory.

But the saddest case of all to my mind is poor 12 year old George Page whose offence

was that he was a vagrant and was wandering abroad with no visible means of subsistence. He got 1 month hard labour and 5 years reformatory.

England/Germany/USA. The case of the disappearing husband. One of my Goddard Association members emailed me for some help. Her grandfather, Edward Brett Goddard married in Leicestershire in 1912 and fathered 5 children between then and 1919. Edward apparently remained in the army at the end of WW1, returned to Germany and disappeared. However his wife subsequently discovered that he had “married” a German woman, Elizabeth Tiel but none of her letters addressed to his last known army address in Germany ever elicited a reply. While I was bracing myself to attempt to discover details of this “marriage” which was going to be no small task, the member emailed me again to tell me that she had spotted a reference to him in the Ancestry.com One World Tree, having died in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1989. Although reference was made to Elizabeth Tiel and 4 children (by this “marriage”), the children were not named. Armed with this information it took very little time to find Edward in the Ellis Island lists emigrating from Germany in 1930 followed a few weeks later by Elizabeth and 3 children. Since one of the children was named Stafford it was not particularly difficult to find out what happened to Stafford who is still alive – as is my member’s mother aged 90 who is one of the five children of Edward’s legitimate marriage. Both sides of the family are now in touch and making arrangements to meet!

Were you aware...........................

Scotland . Laura Holland has drawn our attention to a little known site http://www.scotlandsfamily.com/. This is a free of charge site and we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of material on it. Well worth looking at for anyone doing Scottish research.
Scotland . James Thomson has advised us that transcribed versions of the 1871 and 1891 Scottish censuses are now available on Ancestry.com (available free of charge at the Toronto Family History Centre). Although the actual images of the census returns are not available on this site, James points out that the great advantage of the Ancestry site is the ability to search over a very wide range of fields raising the possibility of being able to save money by being able to pinpoint the required image from the Scotland's People site.

Toronto Family History Centre Current Opening Hours

Monday 9.30 a.m to 4 p.m.

Tuesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Wednesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Thursday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Friday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

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Questions for The Forum still required. This Bulletin now goes out to nearly 400 people - there's probably someone among them who knows the answer to your problem.

In this Bulletin

We draw your attention to the vast number of documents that are available to download on Documents On-Line in the Were you aware..........section.
Also in this section we report on the appearance on-line of a first group of the First World War British soldiers WO 364 records - the "Unburnt Documents".

Announcements

We are acutely aware that some of you have been waiting an inordinate length of time for films that they have ordered to arrive. We place an order on Salt Lake once a week at lunchtime on Thursdays. We are still awaiting 9 films ordered on 21 December, 6 films from the 4 January order and 6 films from the 11 January order. We are told that there is a problem in the Salt Lake distribution system which they are trying to resolve. The 21 December films should arrive here within 14 days with the other outstanding orders following shortly thereafter. We apologise for this delay.

The Forum

Answer to Previous Question

Q1/07/2007. Scotland/Canada/USA. George Porter lived in Chapman Township, Ontario, and apparently died between 1891 and 1901 but I can find no record of his death in Ontario. However, he might have died in Seattle, Washington where civil death records did not start until 1907. How do I find a record of his death? Firstly, we think you should make absolutely sure that George did not die in Ontario. We have come across many examples of bizarre indexing with, for example, the surname having an incorrect first letter and the rest of the surname thoroughly mangled. But Ancestry.ca (available for use free of charge at the Toronto Family History Centre) allows you to search over a number of fields. For example, by putting in just the first name, George, the death year 1896 + or - 5 years and "Scotland" in the keyword will produce all the Georges born in Scotland who died in Ontario from 1891 to 1901. Having satisfied yourself that Seattle is a more likely venue for his death you can contact the King County, Washington archives on www.metrokc.gov/health/vital_st/ to see if they can help. Barbara Billing writes "

Washington State has a website, "Washington Secretary of State" http://www.secstate.wa.gov/ research on line for some documents. The State Archives and Library have been very useful in my own genealogy search. Just click on "Library" then click on "Ask a Librarian"". New Questions

Q1/08/2007. England. Snowden TEMPLE was born in Bridport, Dorset June 18,1806. His father , a weaver, had relocated to Bridport c 1800 from North Yorkshire. I next find Snowden Temple marrying Sarah SIMPSON May 12, 1832 in West Acklam Middlesboro . The 1841 CENSUS found him in Dudley, Worcester, Freebodies with 2 little girls, Mary, aged 7 years and Ellen aged 5 years-- all NOT born in this county --no sign of a spouse.

A subsequent search found that Sarah ,his wife ,had died 18th of June 1840, 6 week old old Lydia had died 14th of June, 1840, 2 year old Ann had died 16th of June 1840. To make matters worse Snowden died 8th of October, 1841 of "a bursting of a blood vessel in a natural way by the visitation of God"

This left the 2 little girls now aged 8 and 6 as orphans. Snowden had other siblings--maybe they took the girls in, but how does one locate an Ellen and Mary Temple any place in England?? I have searched the 1851 CENSUS without any success-- Mary and Ellen Temple are very common names. I do not know if their mother, Sarah ,had family--the girls might have gone with one of the Simpson family. Would they have gone into a Poor House? Now I am lost. Any suggestions?

Q2/08/2007. England. Charles Robert John Edwards: 1850-1921: 2^nd Great Grandfather Known facts Birth Certificate showing birth in Hammersmith. Father shown as William Henry Edwards an artist and mother as Sarah Anne Edwards formerly Field. Missing was William Henry’s middle name of Foreman. Marriage Certificate showing marriage to Emma Han of Crewkerne Somerset. Children: including Henry Hann my Grandfather shown in the census, by birth certificates and as known by family members William Henry Foreman Edwards: 1820 - ?: 3^rd Great Grandfather Known facts 1851 Census shows him as proprietor of a drawing academy born in Hammersmith. His family includes Charles (Robert John) then aged 1 year also born Hammersmith. His age however is given as either 31 or 36 which means, if it is 36 that he was born in 1815 not 1808. Sarah Anne would have been only 16 at the time of marriage as she is indicated to be 29 and therefore born 1822. Question: could 16 be ‘Of full age?.” Is this a serious concern about the dates – how accurate was the recording of ages in the 51 census? Marriage Certificate of November 1838 shows marriage to Sarah Anne Field daughter of John Field. Both are recorded as “Of full age”. His residence is shown as Acton. Certificate does not include his Foreman middle name. It shows his father as Robert Edwards, an artist. Sarah Edwards from information of monumental inscriptions at St.Pauls, Hammersmith was buried in 1854 aged 34 so that would make her born 1820. This is a variance with the census record by about 2 years. Parish registers for St.Pauls Hammersmith show various baptisms of their children with the father a ‘drawing master’ married to Sarah Anne. Interestingly there are various artists living in Hammersmith having children baptized including Richard Dyer who named his child Wilmot (see Robert Edwards’s child Elizabeth Wilmot) and in 1837 a Noah Foreman married a Catherine Edwards. Possibly coincidental but perhaps the families were friendly or connected in some way. The Royal Academy of Arts book “A complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904” shows a W H Edwards exhibiting from 1783 to 1848 with paintings of various floral subjects. The addresses given range from Kensington Gore; Clapham Rise, Surrey and later Hammersmith. The Victoria & Albert Museum has a book in their collection “A young artists guide to flower drawer and painting in watercolours” by William Henry Edwards” published in 1820. It seems most unlikely that this William Henry was publishing a book when still a child and clearly he could not have exhibited in 1783 some 25 years before his birth. This suggests there were at least two William Henry Edwards. Perhaps Robert Edwards had a brother William Henry? Or could William Henry be the father of Robert and Grandfather of William Henry Foreman?

Robert Edwards circa. 1780? - ? Known facts: Robert Edwards married to Mary shows up in St.Paul’s Hammersmith parish register with various baptisms including William Henry Foreman born 14 July 1808 and baptized August 14 of that year. The father is shown as an artist. Other children of the artist Robert and his wife Mary included Robert Charles Augustus, Elizabeth Wilmot, Jenetta Marriot and John Heelas. A marriage is recorded between Robert Edwards and Mary Heelas in St.Marylebone in 1799. No record of his birth has yet been found in Hammersmith. A preliminary search of the large number of Robert Edwards’s in the census of 1841 and 1851 has not yet turned up his birth. The Royal Academy of Arts book “A complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904” shows him as a painter exhibiting a painting of ‘Landscape and cattle’ in 1820. At the time he was living at 31, Brownlow Street (in Clerkenwell). Interestingly another artist S.R.W Edwards also a painter of the same address exhibited in 1818 and 1822. Possibly his wife? The Allgemeinse Lexikon der Bildeden Kunstler mentions a R Edwards as a copper engraver on a work in 1795 and goes on to say that this artist may be the same as a copper engraver whose mark “RE.1784” and “Edwards 1788” might be the same artist. The Edwards’s seem to have moved around but never straying far. from Clapham Rise (presumably near today’s Clapham just south of the Thames adjacent to Battersea) to Clerkenwell just north of the present City of London to nearby St.Marylebone then Kensington and just further west in Hammersmith. There is also a brief period in Turnham Green a bit further west from Hammersmith. There was a famous artist and copper engraver William Camden Edwards (1777 – 1855) active at this time but it seems he neither married nor had children. Nor is there information to suggest he had siblings who were artists.

Is there any concern with this part of my tree to date?
Can anyone suggest further research, in particular where to look for Robert Edwards?